Breakfast in the Dunes
by Miss Baby
Summary: They were the most unlikely two people to fall in love; one a driven student on the brink to greatness, the other a jaded rock star on the road to ruin. But when hopes, dreams and the New York State Division of Parole force them together, fate takes over and hate soon grows into a different sort of passion.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

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><p><em><strong>LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.<strong>_

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><p><strong>1.<strong>

"Dad?" Pausing on the stairs, Bella took a moment to let her eyes cross over all the pictures hanging there. Collectively they were a document of her life in the small town she called home, starting with a sad little eight year old and ending with the proud high school Valedictorian. Deep down inside, she still had trouble believing that was her; boasting the highest Grade Point Average of her graduating class, and she was newly accepted into Columbia University, with a full scholarship, as well.

It was a dream come true, even if the thought of the huge shift her life was undertaking scared the shit out of her.

"Dad?" she repeated, dumping her carry-on bag on top of the suitcases she and her father had already lugged down the stairs that morning. She smiled as her eyes fell on her father; a strong man even in spite of the seemingly miserable figure she found waiting on her. "I think I'm ready now."

Charlie Swan, meanwhile, was having the worst day of his life. That was saying something given the fact that he'd been widowed at the age of thirty and made a job out of dealing with the unsavory corners of society, as chief of police in their little dot-on-a-map town in Washington state.

The pain of losing his wife had been so quick and sudden that shock had prevailed. One moment, she'd been there, and the next she was gone forever. The pain of losing his daughter, in comparison, had been years in the making. In his heart, of course, he'd always known his daughter would go far in life, but in all his expectations of his little baby girl, he never believed she'd go quite as far as the other side of the country.

"I'll go start the car then." He sighed, his heart bleeding as he looked at the two big suitcases, carrying most of his only child's earthly possessions. Taking the handle of one of them, he looked up, catching her gaze. "Are you sure you still want to go?"

Bella smiled sadly, remembering the countless times they'd had the very same conversation over the past couple of months. "Absolutely positive, Dad."

Charlie nodded. Like his daughter he was of the pragmatic, quiet kind that didn't like to speak three words when two would do, or talk about feelings in general. He knew his daughter didn't like their separation any more than he did but he also knew that the offer she had on the table was too good to pass up on.

Especially for a girl with her talents.

Not even if it meant breaking her daddy's heart.

"Your mom would have been proud of you," he finally huffed. Gruffness was his default setting, which meant that even when he was happy, or at the very least slightly optimistic, his words always came out as a huff. This time, though, his chagrin kind of fell flat as his lips pulled into a small smile. Both the memory of his beloved wife and the sight of his little girl would do that. "Our little girl grown up and heading off to the big city." He pouted, letting his eyes wander over his baby girl, wondering when in God's name she grew up so fast. And why. "Did it have to be New York, though?"

Bella merely rolled her eyes. This, too, was a conversation they'd had before and though she really respected her dad's adversity towards big cities—hell, she pretty much felt the same about it after having been a witness when her mother fell victim to big city crime—she knew that hiding away in a small, sleepy town, wasn't the answer. "I would have ended up in the city anyway. At least right now you know that I'll be living in a nice, relatively secure campus dorm instead of some rat infested apartment with junkies running the streets below."

That, at least, shut her father up long enough to get to the car, fill the trunk with her luggage and, after a final goodbye, out of the driveway and past Forks' city limits.

Her fear was nothing compared to that one, terrible night, but it was still severe. As was her excitement.

Their journey up to SeaTac was peaceful, or at least a peaceful as a journey of two people stressing out for similar, as well as completely different reasons, could get. What remained undisputed, though, was that it was a very quiet journey. Lost in their thoughts, neither father nor daughter spoke; the quiet in the car only pierced by the soft noise of the radio.

"Carlisle and Esme will look after you," her dad finally spoke, lifting her luggage out of the trunk of the car as he dropped her off at the airport. "If there's anything, _anything_ at all, call me. Day or night. If it's something I can't fix from my end of the country, tell Carlisle."

"I will." She could feel her bottom lip tremble as she tried to keep it together.

"Got your mace?" Her dad's face was stern, every inch the badass cop he was at heart as he tried to assure himself of the fact that his daughter was prepared for everything the big city could throw at her.

"It's in my suitcase," Bella answered, desperately trying to keep it together. "I can't have it on the plane with me."

"Unpack it as soon as you land. You can never be too careful," her father insisted. "And when in doubt, use it. It's better to have some innocent fool writhe around on the ground with a couple of sore eyes than to have my baby girl end up in hospital or worse."

"I know," Bella smirked, recounting the lessons her dad had instilled in her from as early as he possibly could. "It's better to be safe than sorry."

"Good girl." Charlie dawdled before finally pulling his baby girl in for a hug. It was brief, neither of them willing to make their goodbye into a tear-filled soppy display of emotions. So after a while he pushed her back, patted her shoulder and sent her off. "Now go, before you miss your plane."

Bella nodded, biting her lip to ward off the tears. "I'll miss you, Dad."

"So will I, Bells." He nodded, waving awkwardly as he saw his daughter—his life's pride and joy—turn around and awkwardly struggle into the terminal with her two suitcases and carry-on bag.

The first thing he did as she disappeared out of sight was call his friend. Before he'd go on his way back to the cold empty place that used to be home, he needed to be assured one last time that they would be waiting for her.

As her father made his way back home, Bella was soaring thousands of feet above the earth, her heart pounding in her throat as she tried to organize what little she knew of the new life that awaited her.

In a few short months, she would be starting college and moving into her dorm room. Though technically she'd still be attending school, just like she did in Forks, she knew that in reality, the two different types of education couldn't have been more different. In Forks, she had always been the undisputed champion of the classroom; her grades as near perfection as a student could get. In the very competitive environment of an Ivy League college, though, she already knew, or at the very least suspected, she would have a lot more trouble maintaining a good average. Let alone rise above her peers.

And then, of course, there were the months that bridged the gap between the start of the academic year and her departure from Forks; months that would be spent being a babysitter to two kids and that way earning a bit of spending money to supplement her scholarship. It would give her just that bit of luxury that would allow her to make a better use of the metropolis she would soon find herself a citizen of.

The kids in question, twelve year old Jasper and ten year old Rosalie, belonged to one of her father's oldest and closest friends. Carlisle Cullen and he had met in college—both fresh from some small town and sharing a dorm room. Though their lives couldn't have taken more different courses if they tried, their friendship had always remained. Over the years, they'd made a habit of going on extended hikes together (one week in Spring, and one week in Fall) trekking across large parts of the Appalachian trail together as well as doing some other famous hikes around the country. It had been the only weeks in her life that Bella had been shipped off to some relative for sleepovers. But she'd been more than happy to do so.

As familiar as her father was with his best friend, to Bella, Carlisle and his pretty younger wife, Esme, were almost strangers. She'd seen them a few times and, of course, heard the many stories her dad had shared about his best friends over the years but that was about as far as her acquaintance with them went.

Living with them at their beach house in the Hamptons for two months would be like jumping into the deep end.

It was early evening by the time her plane touched down at JFK; both the flight as well as the retrieval of her luggage going as smooth as these things could go, her mouth dry with nerves as she exited the baggage claim area and checked for familiar faces.

"Bella!" The woman waving a dainty, perfectly manicured hand up in the air was even prettier in life than she had been in the pictures she'd seen of her; waves of caramel colored hair fell onto her shoulders as a heart-shaped face framed a pair of friendly eyes that resembled almonds both in shape and in coloring.

Bella wasn't allowed to gawk for long, though, because all too soon—and much to her own shock—she was enveloped in one of the wealthiest hugs she'd received in her life. That was, if her senses didn't deceive her.

"I'm so happy you're here!" Esme gushed. "Did you have a pleasant flight? Your father must have called us a dozen times while you were in the air."

"I know." Bella snickered, recalling the short conversation she'd had with her father while she was waiting for her bags. "He actually asked me to apologize for him."

"Pshh! I know that if it had been one of my kids, I would have done the same." Esme waved the apologies away, chuckling as, much to Bella's surprise, a man in a suit stepped forward to take her bags. It was a good thing he identified himself as the driver of the Cullen family's town car or Bella would have found herself forced to deploy her mace already.

After all, it was better to be safe than sorry.

Esme shepherded her through the airport and into the awaiting town car, her never-ending stream of words difficult to keep up with as Bella scrambled to sort the things she heard into need-to-remember and won't-cause-embarrassment-if-I-forget sections of her memory.

"The kids will be in bed by the time we arrive," Esme spoke, her voice ringing out clearly over the low rumble of the car engine as the airport gave way to the expressway. "And Carlisle has a thing he needs to go to for work so he'll be staying in town tonight. You'll have to make do with me I'm afraid—have you eaten, by the way?"

"Just airplane food," Bella clarified.

"Just to warn you, I can't cook to save my life, but I'm sure that, between the two of us, we'll be able to whip up a grilled cheese sandwich or a salad or something," Esme was quick to assure her. "And you'll be able to meet my little hell raisers in the morning. They've been so excited to have you stay with us!"

"What are they like?" Bella inquired, trying desperately to fill the as of yet blank image she had with as much information as she could so as to make their introduction run as smoothly as possible.

"Jasper is the quiet one," Esme started. "He mostly stays up in his room, reading and playing music. And he completely worships his uncle…" her voice trailed off wistfully as Bella blushed, suddenly remembering that Esme was the sister of one of the hottest, most talented artists of her generation. One who also seemed to be determined to throw away his life and was currently in jail, at least if the tabloids were to be believed, serving out a sentence for distributing drugs to some of his fans. "Anyway…" Esme pulled herself back out of her thoughts, "Rose couldn't be more different. She's very outgoing and, thanks to her dad giving her everything she wants, pretty spoiled. I guess you could say she's your average Park Avenue Princess, even though we actually live on Fifth."

The street names were dazzling. She only knew them from books and television and that had been enough to let her know that the world she'd just stepped into was completely different from what she'd left behind. Her dad had been by no means poor; being the police chief of a small town hadn't made him wealthy but had left him with enough to put a roof over their head, food in their stomachs and clothes on their bodies. Bella had never been one to ask for much more.

This life, however, was one where people had drivers and two homes which were probably about as large as her former school building. Her suspicion was confirmed when, finally, the car pulled up in front of a magnificent, three story wooden beach house, rising up in all its magnificence from the sandy dunes. It was beautiful in a crazy, out-of-this-world fashion.

And it made her feel more and more like Dorothy in the _Wizard of Oz_, realizing she was about as far away from home as a girl could get.

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><p><em><strong>Thoughts? <strong>_


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

><p><em><strong>LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.<strong>_

* * *

><p><strong>2.<strong>

"Jeee-zus, fuck!"

Aro Volturi's eyebrows shot up into his hairline as his client—one of the most talented, yet challenging clients he'd represented in his long career—slid into the seat next to him.

"I see that prison has done nothing to change your vocabulary," he remarked, the slight Mediterranean lilt to his voice betrayed his Italian ancestry.

"I was waiting for half an hour! Do you know how fucking hot it is outside? I had to check to see if my nuts had started to melt!" his client complained, unaware of the threatening undertone in Aro's voice. Unaware or just simply uninterested.

Aro was banking on the latter, much to his disappointment.

"I apologize for the delay," Aro, ever the gentleman, replied. "Siobhan ran into some trouble at the studio and I had to stay until it was solved." What he didn't mention was the fact that he had been more than happy to stay even longer than needed. He had long started to dread every meeting he had with this ornery young man who seemed so determined to throw away the gifts God had bestowed upon him, and because Siobhan Kelly with her angelic voice and unassuming behavior was bringing in actual money whereas Edward was only eating into his profits.

"So that's how it is," the young man huffed, lighting up a cigarette even though Aro had repeatedly told him he couldn't stand the smell of cigarette smoke. "I make one fucking mistake and suddenly that cunt is the sole star in your universe?"

"My dear boy…" this time, the warning in his voice didn't go unnoticed, "you know as well as I do that the industry in which both of us belong to doesn't just revolve around writing pretty songs and putting them out there. It's based upon making money, plain and simple, and right now, she's bringing in more cash in a month than you have in the past two years."

That shut Edward up.

Aro smiled, not the slightest bit unruffled by the conversation they just had. And even if he would have been, he knew better than to show the little upstart sitting beside him that he was succeeding. Because if he had learned something in the ten year's he'd represented him, it was that Edward Cullen got off on making people uncomfortable.

If there ever was a man who lived to divide and conquer, it was this one.

After such a promising start, during which Aro had had to pinch himself to know he wasn't dreaming, Edward had soon started to turn into one of the most challenging clients he had ever represented. The young man was so incredibly talented—his first record had shot to the top of the charts in record time, earning both him, Edward, and the record company more money than they had ever dreamed.

And Aro liked money.

In fact, he liked it better than anything in the entire world.

The trouble was, though, that to Edward, money had never been his motivation. Coming from a very humble place, like Aro had, it was hard to see how someone could just throw it all away on parties, wrong friends, and other flighty pleasures. It was even harder to see how those very same flighty pleasures were starting to take his toll on the young man's career; from the first failed concerts where Edward had either been too drunk or too stoned to give his fans their money's worth, to the many incidents his wrong habits had caused to occur. In the end, Aro had spent more time in the record company CEO's office trying to explain his client's behavior or attempting to smooth over whatever mess Edward had created the previous night.

It was why he had taken on a second client in the first place: to get his joy in managing talented musician's back but also to provoke Edward into getting his life and, more importantly, his career, back on track.

That hadn't worked, though.

"Can we stop off at Burger King on the way to the office?" Edward spoke, breaking Aro out of his glum thoughts with another one of his selfish requests. "I assume that's where we're going, right? It's been ages since I've had a decent cheeseburger."

Aro knew better than to argue with the kid, knowing that where Edward could be a punk when he got his way, he was a nightmare when someone would deny him. "I find it funny that you consider fast food a _decent_ meal," Aro grumbled as he ordered his driver to stop the car.

"It's what I want to eat. Sue me!" Edward huffed, the quiet as he left the car almost soothing as silence once again fell over the back seat. _Almost_. Since Aro knew it wouldn't last. Edward would be back sooner rather than later and when they reached the office, Aro knew he was going to have to give his client some news that wouldn't go over too well.

Edward, meanwhile, was thoroughly enjoying his newly reclaimed freedom. And even though he knew he'd completely fucked up and had fucked up by offering blow to a girl he later found out to be a minor, he knew he didn't belong behind bars.

It wasn't the life he was brought up to live.

But, hey, so much about what his parents may have wished for him when they brought him into this world had already gone to the dogs that, in the grand scheme of things, he supposed it didn't even matter. At least, it didn't matter as much as the fact that neither of his parents had lived past the age of forty. Edward and his sister had been left with grandparents who thought money could make up for absence and lack of affection.

That was why he behaved the way he did.

Sure, he was a punk, but if you would have asked Edward, he would have said he had very good reasons for being a jackass. And it wasn't just that he enjoyed antagonizing some of the do-gooders who were trying to pull him away from what he wanted, it was just that keeping people at arm's length was safer for him.

You couldn't get hurt if you never allowed anyone close enough to stab a dagger through his heart.

Right then, all he wanted to do was grab his stuff—which he was sure Aro had safely kept somewhere around his office—check into a hotel and call his friends to have some fun. Not listen to whatever long and tedious lecture the old man had planned.

At least his stomach was full after eating his more-than-decent meal. He smiled, patting his stomach as he wadded up the paper bag that had contained his food. He knew how Aro felt about fast food, but he didn't give a damn. He'd been in prison for half a year, eating whatever nasty shit was served at the prison cafeteria. He hadn't been dreaming about fine, delicate pieces of fish or tiny little plates of expensive food. It had been big, juicy hamburgers and rich, crispy fries he dreamed about.

And steak.

He'd barely parked his ass on one of the push seats on the opposite side of Aro's big, fancy desk when the old guy started his lecture. "Where do you intend to live now that you're out?"

Edward shrugged. "A hotel, I suppose. I don't think you kept my room at the Hilton on while I was away?"

"You're banned from ever entering that place again," Aro huffed, recalling the lengths he'd had to go to in order to keep the manager from going to the cops after Edward had gone on a rampage all over his room after he'd realized he was facing jail time. "And even if you were, your sister and I have deemed it more prudent for you to temporarily move in with her. In fact, we've already squared it away with your parole officer and Esme's expecting your call as soon as our meeting is over. You will check into the Waldorf for the night and her driver will pick you up tomorrow morning at our convenience. I'll get Chelsea to retrieve your things from the storage room."

Edward nodded, his breath coming in short, angered gasps as he sat there and let his manager order him around like he was a kid. Or, even worse: an inmate. "What gives you the fucking right to do all this shit, Aro? In case you forgot: I'm a free man!"

"The conditions of your parole, for starters." Edward didn't like the scolding look on Aro's face one bit. As if he needed more reminders of where he'd been for the past couple of months! "And because I want to make sure you don't fall back into your old habits."

If Aro had been a violent man, he would have polished the small smirk off the young man's face, making sure he would think twice about just shrugging and grinning away his concerns. Being as it was, he had to sit on his hands to keep himself from turning into one. "Edward, I don't think you quite realize the severity of the situation," he warned, only earning more scorn. "Your lawyers were lucky to get you off this lightly. If that poor girl's testimony had held up in court, or if anyone had seen you actually give her the drugs, you would have been looking at _years_ behind bars instead of months." Aro paused, trying to get his anger under control before he continued. "Be that as it may, you're out and we can focus on saving what's left of your career, however little is left of it now."

"Little?" Edward chuckled, letting his eyes slip over the impressive array of awards lining the bookcase on the far end of the office. Technically they were all his but since he had no place to put them, he'd been more than happy to give them to his manager for safekeeping. They didn't really mean a fuck to him anyway. "I wouldn't call _that_ little."

"_That shit_, is all in the past," Aro pressed. "In the present you have gone from a talented artist, resident 'hot, tortured musician' and media darling to public enemy number one and to say the record company is happy with that change would be the understatement of the damn century." Leaning forward, he waited until the little punk sitting across from him finally looked up. "One more incident and they'll be looking into terminating your contract, Edward, and there will be nothing I can do to stop them."

"Fine." Edward sat back, rubbing his temples as he realized he might have been a little naïve in thinking that by the time he'd be released from jail, the whole matter would have blown over. Then again, up until then, he'd done some lousy shit in his life but none of it had ever stuck so why would this?

"On top of that, if your parole officer catches you with the wrong crowd or even one of your mandatory drug tests comes up positive, your ass will be back in jail for another year," Aro went on, driving his point home.

Edward sighed. From the tone of his voice alone he knew Aro wasn't kidding about this stuff. And he guessed he could see why. What he'd done, even if he never knew the girl wasn't eighteen yet, was about as low as a person could go. If he had been a neutral onlooker, he wouldn't want to have anything to do with a lowlife like him either. "What do you suggest, then?"

Sitting back again, Aro folded his hands as he appraised his client, seeing at least a tiny hint of sincerity he could work with. "I suggest that you lay low for a while, ditch your usual friends for some who are a little bit more wholesome, ditch your habits while you're at it and write the best damn music you have ever written in your career—preferably a record filled with songs that will make people realize that underneath you're a decent guy after all. It's the only way to save yourself, kid."

"Very well." Smirking, Edward was already doing the math in his head, trying to ascertain how long he'd have to act like a choir buy in order to let the dust clouds settle.

"You need to get out of this city, Edward," Aro advised, "because we both know that even _if_ you manage to evade trouble, it has a habit of catching up with you, whether you want to or not."

Edward leaned back as he let out a frustrated sigh. He wanted more than anything to protest the scheme his manager and sister had so cleverly come up with but, deep down, he knew it was the only way out of the mess he found himself in. "Fine," he reluctantly gave in, "I guess I'll be giving my sister a call, then."

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><p><em><strong>Thoughts?<strong>_


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

><p><em><strong>LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.<strong>_

* * *

><p><strong>3.<strong>

Waking up in a strange bedroom, Bella felt completely disoriented. Sitting up, she scanned the room; the slightly salty smell of the sea and the sounds of waved crashing in lifting her out of the unease and mild agoraphobia her new surroundings instilled within her.

Like everything in this house, her room was huge; with the sofa and coffee table set on one end and the desk and bookcase in the other as well as, of course, the bed, it almost felt like she was in a studio apartment.

Not that she'd be able to afford any of the luxury she found herself in.

From what her dad had told her about his buddy, she'd already known Carlisle Cullen was loaded. Where both of them had an interest in law, Charlie had always leaned more towards the practical side of upholding it, whereas Carlisle had been more into theory and legal practice. He'd gone to Columbia Law after graduating from U-Dub and had made his career in the big city. By the time he was thirty, he'd already made partner in one of the most prestigious law firms in the city and had been raking in quite the little fortune for himself when he'd met the beautiful, and equally wealthy, Esme Masen.

And when money met money, it had the habit of making even more money. Then that money gives birth to homes like the one she was waking up in.

Stretching, Bella enjoyed the softness of her sheets for another minute or two before she pulled them away, her feet cold against the polished floorboards as she walked out towards the French doors. The sounds and smells of the sea as she opened them and stepped onto the small, private balcony made her squeal with delight. Her eyes followed a seagull as it rode the wind, flying right past her window before soaring out towards the sea.

_To be as free as that bird…_ Bella smiled softly to herself as she got through her morning routine, not quite sure what kind of times the family kept since Esme had pretty much waved away every single mention of work she offered to provide the previous night.

Esme, of course, was already bustling around the house by the time Bella came down; rattling away on her phone while taking sips from a huge cup of coffee as she sauntered through the house in her casual chic attire. She was every bit the kind of woman you would expect living in a beach house in the Hamptons.

"You're awake!" Her face broke out in a radiant smile as soon as Esme spotted her new companion coming down the stairs. Her hand covering the phone, she quickly pointed her young guest towards the kitchen. "Please, help yourself to coffee or tea and whatever breakfast food you like. There's plenty to go around." And just like that, she went back to business, making arrangements for an event one of her charities was staging in the somewhat near future.

While she talked, Bella sat down at the counter, enjoying a quiet breakfast of coffee and some cut up fruit while gazing out over the sea. Though she'd lived near a beach for almost all of her life, and had spent many afternoons lying in the sand while staring out over the ocean, there had never been a time in her life when she'd lived right next to the shoreline. She could already tell she was going to like it.

"Well, that's a lovely start to the morning!" Esme sighed, the sarcasm in her voice not wasted on Bella. "That was my event manager telling me the location we had in mind for our benefit can't host our event any longer because they're remodeling unexpectedly. Something about a fire next door causing some smoke damage or something… And because the benefit is just two months away, and most of the places that can house a crowd as big as ours are already booked, we're going to 'have to be creative'." She made air quotes around the final part of the sentences, her eyes spitting fire as Bella shifted nervously in her seat. Apparently, there was a significant blaze roaring somewhere underneath Esme's genteel features.

"I hope you'll be able to find a place," Bella offered, completely out of her depths in discussing ballrooms and charity functions.

"Oh, I will." Esme sighed, calming herself again. "Just do me a favor and never get into the whole charity circuit, not matter how nicely they ask you. The only thing it's good for is getting grey hair before your time!" She chuckled, refilling her cup. "It's a good thing you're up so early, though. It gives us a little bit of time to discuss matters before the barbarian horde descends."

Bella laughed at the way Esme jokingly referred to her children but soon turned serious, eagerly anticipating the description of her job. "Should I write things down?"

"No." Esme shook her head. "There's not that much to it. Do you know you're actually the first nanny I've hired?" Esme waited for Bella to shake her head before she explained, "Of course I've gone through loads of babysitters but I've always wanted to be a good and very much hands-on mother to my kids. It's only been for the past year or so that I've started to get so swamped with all the charity work I'm doing that I find myself unable to combine the two."

Bella nodded, still unsure of where the conversation was leading. She took a sip of coffee as she tried to pay as close attention to Esme's words as she could, determined to pick up as much as possible about the Cullen household.

"Last summer was particularly awful," Esme continued, folding her hands in front of her. "We usually spend our entire summer at this house, with Carlisle traveling back and forth between Manhattan and the Hamptons and me staying with the kids. Last year, though, I was called back to the city for crisis after crisis, leaving me at my wits end about what I was supposed to do with the kids. I couldn't leave them here on their own but sometimes it was simply impossible to find a sitter so I had to cart them back and forth all the time."

Bella smirked, the journey between the airport and the beach house still fresh in her mind. "I bet they didn't like that!"

"You're right!" Esme smiled wryly, remembering how both her children had protested against the disturbance of their routine. "So this year, I thought I'd try something new. So imagine my relief when Carlisle told me his best friend's daughter was looking to move to New York."

"And here I am," Bella smiled awkwardly, wishing Esme would just hurry up and tell her what her job was. For as much as she was starting to like the woman, she was still her employer and Bella was eager to get to work.

"Yes, you are." Esme smiled gratefully, patting Bella's hand, "and if this morning's conversation is anything to go by, not a moment too soon."

Unable to prolong the moment for much longer, Bella decided there and then to just jump in the deep as she asked, "So what do you expect of me, exactly?"

"Most of the time, I hope your job will be very boring," Esme started, chuckling at the confused look she saw in Bella. "I hope to be here a lot over the summer and when I am, we'll both be working together, I suppose. It's only when I'm called away that your official duties will start."

Bella nodded, the picture suddenly starting to become clear in her mind. "So you want me more as a sort of stand-by babysitter than an actual nanny."

Esme nodded. "I have to admit I feel sort of ashamed to have lured you over here under false pretenses but I hope that the free time to explore the beaches and towns around here will sweeten the deal? And we'll pay you the full-time fee we agreed upon."

"I'm sure I'll manage," Bella answered. More time to read and enjoy her time while still raking in quite good money? She had a hard time believing any of what she was hearing was real! As much as she hated being idle, with the hectic year she knew to be ahead of her, a couple of months of lounging at this beach house and catching up on her reading before the academic year kicked off wouldn't exactly hurt.

"I'm so happy to have you here," Esme insisted, the gratitude in her smile making Bella like her even more. "Just the fact that you're here and able to step in to take care of my little devils at a moment's notice is a weight off my back!"

"Can you tell me a little bit more about them?" Bella asked, wanting to make sure she got off to a good start with both the kids. "You said Jasper was more an introvert and Rose a bit of a princess, but what do they like to do? And more importantly, what would you like me to do with them whenever you're away?"

"I think most things are fine as long as you don't take them to a tattoo parlor to get inked or cliff diving," Esme joked. "They both love trips to the zoo or just lazy days at the beach. Jasper's quite the little surfer and loves being out in the ocean—which is fine as long as he stays within view—while Rose will be happy to stick to the beach acting far too old for her age." Esme smiled, her love for her children rolling off her in waves. "A lot of Rose's Manhattan friends are down here as well, so on most days she'll either be off with some of her friends or they will be joining us."

"And Jasper's more of a solitary guy?" Bella asked, assuming as much since Esme had only mentioned Rose's friends.

Esme smiled, nodding. "He knows a lot of the other surfers along our stretch of the beach and usually they hang out together while out on the water, which is great because some of the older guys keep an eye on the younger ones while they're out there. Most of the time that he doesn't spend on his board, he's happy to stick to the music room, strumming his guitar or playing video games."

Esme then went on to show Bella around the downstairs area of the house; a guided tour that had been postponed when they had arrived the previous evening due to both the darkness and the fact that Bella had been exhausted. Apart from the usual rooms, it had a big office where both Carlisle and Esme had their desks, a downstairs playroom that seemed to be dominated by Rosalie, judging from the pinkness of it, and a music room that had been taken over by Jasper.

"Mom! Where's the chocolate milk?" A voice yelled by the time we finished up our tour. _Jasper_.

"It's in the fridge, you idiot, just like it was yesterday and every day before that!" A second voice—Rosalie's—hissed as the sound of cereal being poured into bowls and glasses being grabbed from cabinet drifted out from the kitchen.

Getting back into that room, I could immediately see that while there were certainly some family resemblances in the two of them—the golden honey hair and vibrant, cerulean eyes for one—outwardly the contrast between Rose and her pink and white Gingham dress and matching flats, and Jasper's long, unkempt hair, baggy pants and vintage Nirvana shirt couldn't be bigger.

"Kids," Esme demanded, getting their attention almost immediately as they looked up from their breakfast, a temporary cease-fire on their bickering started the second they spotted the new person standing next to their mom.

"You must be Bella." Rosalie stood up from the barstool she'd been occupying at the kitchen counter and daintily stepped over to the new arrival, holding out a perfectly manicured hand. "I'm Rosalie Cullen."

"Bella Swan," Bella introduced herself, smiling before heading over to the kitchen island where Jasper had returned his attention to his breakfast, scarfing it down with a gusto only matched by other boys his age. "And you're Jasper… Nice to meet you both."

"Hey." Jasper nodded, only pausing long enough to give out the fastest of handshakes before he went back to eating.

The initial meeting set the tone for the rest of the day, which was filled with lazily lounging around the house and getting to know one another. Rose constantly took the lead, asking a million and one questions and appearing quite eager to make a favorable impression while Jasper hung back and limited himself to one syllable answers as much as possible.

It wasn't that he was hostile or anything; he just seemed a little jaded, or perhaps studiously jaded, since on those few, rare moments that she managed to catch him off guard, an eagerness and interest that rivaled his sister's shone through.

All in all, by the time Bella made it back to her room that night, she was pretty satisfied about how the day had gone. The whole setup was still a little strange but it had its upside and the family was nothing if not welcoming and nice. It gave her something good to share with her dad when she called him that night.

It wasn't long after she'd ended the call that noises started to drift up from the terrace, the open window making her privy to the conversation going on below whether she wanted to be or not. Determined not to pry, she booted up her laptop and logged onto Facebook but not even the change of a former boyfriend's relationship status from 'single' to 'in a relationship' could divert her attention from it.

"Seriously, Carlisle, what was I supposed to do?" Bella heard Esme's voice argue, heals clicking on the deck as her employer made her way outside. "I couldn't very well leave him to rot away in jail when I had a perfectly good solution to get him out!"

"I would have expected you to at least discuss this with me," an unfamiliar voice that had to belong to the as yet unsighted Carlisle Cullen responded. "The guy is a drug addict and in jail for supplying drugs to a minor, for heaven's sake. Think about our kids!"

"There never was any proof of that! You know as well as I do how ruthless those paparazzi magazines are these days. They'll make a story out of anything!" Esme snapped back. "Do you honestly think that I would let him come here if I thought he posed a danger to our children?"

"No," Carlisle conceded, "but I do think that when it comes to your brother, you have a hard time seeing the truth. You want to protect him and that's great, but not if it puts our family on the frontline."

"Then what was I supposed to do? Let him stay in the city with those disgusting so-called friends of his?" Esme countered. "He _reached out_ to me, Carlisle. I think he wants to be better and he needs to be out of Manhattan in order to make that work."

Carlisle remained silent for a while but by the tone of his voice as he did speak, Bella was quick to sense that he'd given up. "You know how I feel about this, darling, and as much as I know that nothing I can say will keep you from opening our home to him, I'll have you know I'm keeping my eye on him. One mistake and he's out."

"I know." Esme sounded so sad, her shape vaguely outlined in the twilight as she stood by the railing looking out over the ocean.

Bella slinked into the darkness of her room, uneasy about overhearing the conversation but also curious about the person they were discussing.

After all, weren't the most interesting members of every family those that everyone was always so desperate to keep out?

* * *

><p><em><strong>Thoughts?<strong>_


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

><p><em><strong>LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.<strong>_

* * *

><p><strong>4.<strong>

Edward's first full day of freedom didn't get off to a bad start. Waking up severely hung-over may not have been his preference, but the memories of a good night out with his buddies—and the pretty blonde that followed—more than made up for it. Moving his limbs, he smiled, feeling thoroughly fucked as he stretched out. But this time, in a good way.

Scratching his ass, he sauntered across his hotel room to the bathroom, making the most of his freedom while he still had it. He knew that as soon as he'd arrive at his sister's later that day, a lot of it would be gone. True, he would still be free to come and go as he pleased, and his room would be a great deal more pleasant to stay in than the stinking little cell he'd spent the past couple of months in but, as far as being able to smoke, snort or fuck whatever he liked? He knew the past night had been his only chance to indulge.

And so he did.

As understanding as his sister had been about the somewhat seedier aspects of his life, he knew better than to bring it around her and the kids. Understanding though she may have been, Esme was too straight-laced to have his life of sex, drugs and rock 'n roll shoved in her face.

Let alone Rosalie's and Jasper's faces.

Not that he blamed her. Hell, if he'd been in his sister's shoes, he would have never let a godless hoodlum like him around his kids.

Really making the most of his freedom, he switched on the shower, brushing his teeth while he waited for the water to heat up before hopping in. He didn't waste a minute on unimportant things; his right hand immediately drifting south as his left braced against the wall. His mind filled with the memories of past night as his hand started to move, his breathing growing heavier as he found his rhythm—firm upwards with a little twist, slowly down, repeat—his groans reverberating against the walls as he reached his peak.

Satisfied in more ways than one, he finally turned off the water, quickly drying himself before wrapping the towel around his waist as he marched back into his room to get dressed. His mind now much more up to the challenge of spending the next foreseeable future boring himself to death in the Hamptons.

By the time Edward was ready to go, he'd almost changed his mind already. The thought of spending the foreseeable future trying to evade Esme's fussing and his brother in law's reproving glares had about as much appeal as having his prostate examined. The only good thing was that at least his nephew had the potential to be cool, though if he was smart, he'd stay as far away from Edward as his sister tended to do.

Sighing, he said goodbye to the hotel and parked his ass in the backseat of the car that was sent for him; the tedious drive to the Hamptons setting the tone for an even more tedious era in his life. Even jail would probably be more exciting than weeks spent hanging out by the sea, trying to fend off the advances of teenaged girls and their mothers.

And Carlisle.

He should have been glad that his sister had found a decent man. God only knew she deserved one after the shit both of them had gone through during their childhood. After all, didn't the fact that she had made it through relatively unscathed and able to set up a home for herself as she settled into motherhood and family life mean that there might be hope for him still?

Not that he really felt like settling down, though. At thirty, Edward didn't feel nearly old enough to tie himself to any particular lifestyle and with the reality of being on the road as much as any successful musician had to be, family life just didn't suit him. Besides, apart from Bree—his usual go-to girl whenever he felt an itch but didn't feel like putting any work into scratching it—his liaisons didn't typically last for longer than strictly needed to get the job done.

And none of those girls were of the type he'd bring around to meet his sister.

A couple of hours later, he was deposited right in front of the large, classic timber beach house that housed his sister's family every year for the summer. As soon as the car had rolled to a stop, the front door opened and a familiar figure dashed out to meet him.

"Edward!" His sister's look matched the vibrancy of her greeting; the hug she gave him evoking emotions only a hug from a person who'd been through as much shit as you had could. "I'm so happy to see you, baby brother! I wish you would have told me when you got out. I would have come to get you from _that place_."

It didn't escape Edward's notice how Esme carefully avoided mentioning prison. Her denial about the seedier aspects of his past had always been so formidable that at times she even managed to convince herself that her brother was a good man.

"It's good to see you, too, sis." Edward sighed, allowing himself to get lost in the love so freely offered for a moment before he disentangled himself from her hold. "I had Aro pick me up yesterday. I knew you were here and I didn't want to put you out. Besides, we had a lot of business to discuss anyway."

"Well, you're here now," she soothed, "and judging from the look of you, you could do with a good meal."

"I wouldn't say no to that!" Edward chuckled, eager to enjoy the fruits of his sister's chef's famed cooking skills. "So, how's the family?"

"Everyone's great!" Esme all but squealed as she procured a mouthwatering sandwich from the fridge. "Carlisle is at work, of course, but you'll see him later on tonight as he promised me he'd be back in time for dinner." Edward rolled his eyes. As if he'd be happy to sit at a table with that tool of a husband of hers. "And the kids are out with Bella, their new caretaker."

"You've hired a _nanny_? Are you finally ready to admit defeat?" Edward mused, the irony in his voice causing his sister's eyes to narrow into slits.

"She's not a nanny per se," Esme was quick to clarify, looking a little miffed as her brother put his finger right onto a very sore spot. "She's merely here on standby so that if I have to go into town, the kids won't be forced to tag along. Bella's here so that we can all have a happy, relaxing summer."

Edward smiled, feeling quite curious about this woman on stand-by. At best, she could prove to be a nice little distraction from the tediousness of his life. At worst, she was only going to add to it.

"Don't you dare!" His sister was quick to warn him. Thirty odd years of seeing her brother's thoughts reflected on his face having given her an uncanny ability of reading it. "Bella is a sweet girl—not the type of woman you usually go for. And apart from that: she's the daughter of Carlisle's best friend. Please, don't go there."

"Fine," Edward agreed, crossing his fingers behind his back as he did so. If anything, his sister had only sweetened the deal.

And boy did she live up to the fantasies his mind had started to fill with. As she finally made an appearance, his eyes were immediately drawn to her. Not even Rose's cool greeting and Jasper's much more eager 'hello' could sway them away.

She was flawless; her appearance reminded him of Snow White from the fairy tale his mother used to read to him when he was little. She was pure, unspoiled by the artifice that weeded through the circles he usually moved in. And above all…she was beautiful.

"Bella, meet my brother, Edward," Esme introduced her, her eyes narrowing with discontent as she caught her brother's reaction. "Though you might have heard of him. Edward, this is Bella Swan."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Bella Swan," he spoke, his lips curling up into a smile as he turned up the charm and saw his efforts rewarded with a fierce blush and one damn fine effort to get the hell out of dodge as she scrambled to herd the kids upstairs to help them get cleaned up before dinner.

Ah, dinner!

It proved to be as tedious an affair as Edward had feared. From the get-go, he had to dodge bullets left and right as the _pater familias_ made his displeasure at having the wayward Cullen son under his roof known in his disapproving looks and thinly veiled jabs.

"So, you're out of jail," he started, his eyes narrowing as they zoned in on Edward as if trying to find some remnants of prison still clinging to him.

Sitting back, Edward smirked, determined to give back every bit as good as he got. "I wouldn't be sitting here if I wasn't, would I?"

Bella leaned over her plate, ill at ease under the topic the conversation had steered into. It was a good thing Carlisle had been so late to come home that the kids had their dinner in the kitchen before retreating upstairs. Just like the previous night, she had been sucked unwillingly into this argument with no escape from it, unless she excused herself, thereby drawing more attention upon her herself than she wanted.

"If it were me, I wouldn't act so smug," Carlisle huffed, his steak knife clanging against the plate as he sawed into his huge piece of meat with a bit more aggression than the poor dead animal on his plate warranted. "Especially not considering the reason you were in there in the first place. Let alone the fact that you brought shame over your name and your sister was worried sick about you for months."

And that was just why he disliked Carlisle. Sure, the guy was about as good as Edward was bad, but seriously, did he have to be so fucking pompous about it? And what did he do to contribute to his family's wellbeing anyway? He spent his days either at the office or schmoozing it up at some country club and Edward was convinced that it wasn't for the many pictures hanging on the walls and the occasional appearances the guy put in at family dinners, his kids wouldn't even have known who he was. "It must be nice to be able to ride that high horse all day," Edward sneered, his humor growing as he saw effect of his words in the hard set of Carlisle's brow and the way Esme kept shooting worried looks between them.

"Edward, _please_," she begged, the sigh in her voice, however, betraying that she already knew how this was going to end. _Not well. _Over the years she'd had enough front row seats to similar arguments to know that this would end either with Carlisle or Edward storming off; the words spoken before that deciding whether or not she would have to fight her husband yet again, to keep her brother close.

"If you'd ever managed to stay on the right path for longer than your sister can persuade you, you'd be able to get on your own damned horse and pass judgment on us," Carlisle scolded, his hands balling into fists against the table cloth at the audacity of his brother in law, "but until then, you're nothing but a failed man."

"Car-" Esme started before her brother's scathing voice cut through the soft sound of her anguished voice.

"It takes one to know one, doesn't it?" Edward snickered, patting his full stomach as he leaned back in his chair, his eyes shining with mirth. "Tell me, dear brother in law: how much time did you actually spend in your kids' company this past year?" Grinning, he watched as a look of discomfort passed over Carlisle's face. He had him where the man was weak. And they both knew it. "Because I have a sneaking suspicion that even though I've been in jail for most of it, the scales still tip in my favor."

"And yet you sit here, eat my food and sleep in one of my beds, you ungrateful little brat!" Carlisle snarled, slamming his wadded up napkin down on the table as he pushed his seat back. "Next time you decide to screw up your life so badly you need your sister's help to pull you out of it all, you'd do good to remember whose money is backing your corner."

Edward had to fight the urge to chuckle as Carlisle stormed off; all theatrics and rage with his wife hot on his heels. He knew he probably should have felt bad for ruining his sister's night and what looked like a lovely dinner.

But he didn't.

Carlisle started it and boy did the fucker have it coming! As much as he didn't want to complicate Esme's life even more, both of them knew that Edward had never been the one to walk away from a good sparring match. It just wasn't in his nature.

Looking around him as he cut off a big, juicy slice from his steak, his eyes fell once again on the babysitter who apparently was trying to blend in with the furniture by acting as mousy as she could. It didn't work, though. With a girl who had eyes as big and expressive as hers, she would always have people spellbound.

After he'd stared at her for some time, his interest piquing to a height it hadn't seen in quite some time, she finally stood, her hands trembling and her whole being visibly uneasy under so much scrutiny. "I should probably check on the kids."

"Yeah, you probably should." Grinning, he raised his wine glass towards her before emptying it in one gulp. "Have a good night, little mousy."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Thoughts? <strong>_


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

><p><em><strong>LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.<strong>_

* * *

><p><strong>5.<strong>

_Have a good night, little mousy?_

Prior to his little parting remark, Bella had actually been on Edward's side. However, as she ascended the stairs, her brain slowly started to boil over with rage.

Little mousy.

Seriously?

Was that really the impression she had made on him or was he just trying to goad her like he had been his brother in law all throughout dinner? By the time she'd reached her bedroom, her cautiously favorable opinion of him had shifted into a dislike that would probably rival Carlisle's.

Though she couldn't say she liked the _pater familias_ of the Cullen family all that much either.

Having lived under his roof for a few days, it was hard to see why her father had been raving about what a good man he was and how he lived for his family. Where it was true that Carlisle Cullen was anything but a scoundrel, and probably worked as hard as he did to provide for his wife and children in a way that allowed them to have nothing but the very best in life, Bella could also see where his tactic was flawed.

And boy was it failing miserably!

Spending time with Jasper and Rose that day, it hadn't taken her long to pick up how both the children were craving their dad's attention; Rose by being everything she thought the perfect daughter should be, and Jasper by _rebelling_ against everything he believed Carlisle wanted in a son. While they'd gone into town to get some gelato from the fancy Italian place that apparently couldn't match the ten thousand different flavors Esme had stocked the fridge with, Rose had kept on a steady stream of conversation, mostly outlining all the things she liked about her new dress and how she was looking forward to showing it to her dad when he showed up for dinner. That, of course, didn't happen because Carlisle had been held up in town for so long the kids had already eaten and gone to bed by the time he returned.

The look on Rosalie's face when she realized her dad wouldn't be seeing her new dress, and the pretty curls she and Bella had spent ages coaxing her hair into, had broken Bella's heart into bits. Especially since it was clear as day that this wasn't the first time Rose had been disappointed in that way.

_Charlie would have noticed every detail if it had been his daughter standing in front of him. _

Jasper, on the other hand, was trying a very different approach; crashing down on the beach towel next to Bella after spending about an hour paddling out to the sea and surfing back. He'd wasted no time before confessing that one of the reasons he'd picked up a surf board was that his father hated surfing and surfers alike. It appeared to be a theme in his life: pick something that's the exact opposite of what your father wanted for you and then grow to love it. It had happened with surfing, picking up the guitar when his father preferred the piano, and favoring art and history in school while his father wanted him to focus on science or economics.

_Charlie would have supported any dream Bella showed a bit of interest in._

On the outside, he hadn't looked too put out by his father's delay but when he thought she wasn't looking, that tough front had slipped for just a second, revealing a boy who underneath it all was longing as much for his father to notice him as his sister did.

Poor kids!

Carlisle may have been providing best of _things_ for his children, but all they really wanted was _him_.

Having been forced by fate to grow up with just one parent present in her life, Bella couldn't even fathom having a parent stay away by choice. And then to think that their father chose to spend what few days away he had from working by going on fishing trips with his old buddy! As she got ready for bed, Bella had half a mind to call her father and order him to cancel all fishing trips for the foreseeable future so that Carlisle would be forced to park his ass on one of his expensive sofa for longer than a few minutes every night and actually spend some time getting to know his family.

She didn't though. Because angry as she might be, it didn't make her brave enough to go head-to-head against her employer.

His brother in law, though, was a completely different matter.

When she woke up the next morning, her indignation over Edward's careless jibe had abated somewhat but apparently one look at him; his feet were perched on top of the counter and Rose and Jasper hung on his every word as he told them a story about his life on the road, was enough to bring it all back to the surface.

And that was even before she realized he was telling a story Bella only needed to hear two sentences of to know that it was totally inappropriate.

"…and the girls…they just love a good guitarist." Bella's anger rose to new heights as she caught Edward's suggesting eyebrow-waggle. "Ask any member of any band in the world and he'll tell you it doesn't matter how ugly you are, the minute they put you on a stage with a guitar in your hand or behind a drum kit, women will flock to you in drones. Seriously, Jazz, keep up the good work on that guitar of yours and you're going to have to beat them off you with a stick!"

"No shit!" Jasper shouted, his eyes almost popping out of their sockets as he high-fived his uncle while his sister kept her eyes firmly on her cereal. Her blush, however, left Bella in no doubt that she'd caught on to every single detail of the story.

"I hardly think your sister would approve of you telling these kinds of stories." Bella was quick to step into the room, hey eyes scanning for anyone who could back her up.

"God, mousy!" Edward groaned, stealing a few _cocoa puffs_ from the box and popping them into his mouth one by one. "Do you have to be such a _nanny_?"

"It's what I'm paid to be," Bella snapped, marching up to the counter and taking away the box. Her fingers twitched at her sides as she wished she had that can of mace her father insisted she carry.

Sporting an insufferable grin, he popped the final bite of cereal into his mouth. "And what are you going to do now, little nanny? Are you going to tell on me?"

"It would be the smartest thing to do," Bella replied haughtily, grabbing a cup of coffee and a piece of toast. She waited until the kids had left; Jasper to his precious guitar and Rose to the outside deck so to feed the leftover crumbs of their breakfast to the birds. "But it would be even smarter for you to realize that you're as much of a guest in this house as I am. And what's more, I believe my position here is based on a somewhat stronger footing than yours is."

"Go, little mousy, go!" Edward applauded, chuckling in a way that made her want to smash his face into the counter even more than she had already. "Who could have known that the sweet little lamb turns out to be such a tigress! Hell, I'm getting hard just listening to you!"

Bella gasped, fighting the urge to slap him as, much to her own chagrin, she could feel her cheeks pinking up with a tell-tale blush. In all her life, she couldn't remember even having met someone who made her feel angrier and more uncomfortable. And the worst thing about it was that he knew.

And he loved it.

Much to her relief, Esme chose that very same moment to come back into the house, her footsteps echoing in the distance as she opened the front door and walked straight through to the study while barking orders into her phone. "Then you're going to have a little problem on your hands!" Bella snapped, grabbing her coffee as she hightailed it out of the kitchen—a place that had suddenly become unsafe for her.

Esme's eyes lit up the moment her new friend stepped into her study, her hand motioning for Bella to sit down as she concluded the conversation on the phone before putting the little device down with a look as if it had been the thing to offend her instead of the person on the other end of the line. "It seems like I have to go into Manhattan tomorrow because, apparently, nobody else knows what they're doing." She sighed, frowning as her eye moved to her phone again. "If you want, you and the kids can tag along with me. It's been ages since they've been to the Brooklyn Zoo and Rose has been nagging me to go since she's grown bored of the one in Central Park."

"That would be great!" Bella was quick to agree, though in reality she knew far too little of either zoo to actually have an opinion about them. However, if it was something the kids would enjoy then surely she would like it too. Taking a deep breath, she steeled herself as she remembered one of the things she had been hired for: making sure the kids came to no harm in absence of their parents. "I actually wanted to talk to you about your brother."

"I knew something happened, judging from the looks on both your faces just now." Esme let out another deep sigh as she stared out of the windows with a wistful look that betrayed just how much she worried about her brother. "I do hope he behaved himself after Carlisle and I…_left_ last night. I know he may not show himself to be a decent man at all times but I know him, Bella…" Her face grew so sad as she let her voice trail off. If Bella had ever needed more of an incentive to hate a man, then that was it. "I know he doesn't want to be the person he's become even more than I do but it's just… the way we've been brought up has made him very self-indulgent."

Bella nodded as she saw her prejudice confirmed. "I overheard him saying some things to Jasper and Rose this morning…"

"Don't say any more." Esme smiled sadly, understanding the younger woman's unease at sharing this kind of information with the subject's sister. "I think I know just what my brother might have said and, though I hate that this has happened, I can't say I'm surprised by it. Edward gets to get a little bit enthusiastic when he talks about his life on the road. So much so that he sometimes forgets who he's talking to."

"I think he did just that this morning." Bella bit her lip, trying not to be too disappointed in the rather nonchalant way the sister waved away her brother's indiscretion.

"I'll talk to him. _Again_." Looking out of the window, Esme let out a deep sigh. "Every time he comes here, I hoped that he'd changed…that he'd be my _brother_ again; the sweet, sensitive boy he was before he landed a record deal."

"Life in the spotlight can change people," Bella mused, going on what she picked up from the headlines of magazines.

"I don't think I have to warn you about him, do I Bella?" Esme looked up, suddenly super-discerning as she gazed at her new friend and employee. "For a while now, Edward has had a habit of trying to alleviate what he claims is his boredom while he's staying with us by seducing whatever female employer or friend of ours he has set eye upon.

Bella snorted, remembering how close she had come only a few moments ago to deploying the can of mace her father had equipped her with. "Don't worry, Esme, I think I'm quite safe from him."

Shaking her head, she almost had trouble keeping herself from laughing out loud. If Edward Masen had his sights set on her, then he would have another thing coming.

Because there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell she'd ever end up in _his_ bed.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Thoughts?<strong>_


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

><p><em><strong>LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.<strong>_

* * *

><p><strong>6.<strong>

Edward had to admit that of all the long and never-ending visits to his sister, this one was shaping up to be not so very tedious at all. In fact, he was finding himself to be quite entertained by this particular little trip to the seaside.

And the reason, of course, was his sister's feisty little babysitter.

Chuckling as he remembered the showdown with that little minx the day before, he stretched and got up. If there was anything he liked about staying at his sister's beach house, it was the fact that life was so laid back there. It was boring, of course, but it also had its advantages. He could get up whenever he wanted, do whatever (and for the most part: _whoever_) he wanted, and eat whatever and whenever he chose. No Aro breathing down his neck; no fans screaming underneath his hotel room window; no paparazzi lurking in the bushes.

Or, at least, not yet.

Choosing to forgo a shower, he quickly threw on some jeans and a hoodie before opening the French doors to his ground floor bedroom and stepping out onto the deck. It was another thing that always drew him back to his sister's beach house: the peace and quiet that lay at his fingertips whenever he stepped off the deck and into the rugged landscape of the dunes.

No one to judge him.

Nobody who wanted shit from him.

Nothing to tempt him.

On a typical morning, he'd take his guitar with him and settle in some quiet spot to try out some new tunes. With his style of music being more on the mellow, folky side, he always needed to strip himself completely back to the bare bones and shed all the attitude and detachment he needed in order to survive on the road. He needed bare the rawness of his heart if he wanted to write from it.

Right then, though, writing was as far away from his reach as it could be; his mind still too troubled and unsettled to form words. Deep down, he knew Aro was probably chomping at the bits for him to write from this state. With the negative press surrounding his trial and prison sentence, a _Folsom Prison_ _2.0_ would probably turn his fuck up into a nice little cash cow for the record company and maybe make them forget why they were pissed a him.

Edward, however, wanted none of that.

He knew the whole world was watching; eager for him to fail at life completely, slowly circle along the slippery slope of addiction, scandal and an untimely death or find either love or religion and pull himself out of the festering swamp of failure.

Though he couldn't see himself do either of those things, deep down Edward really wanted to get out of the funk he was in, though he knew the actual likelihood of that happening was slim to none. Making something out of his life would require strength, perseverance and self-sacrifice and those qualities were all ones that were severely lacking in his arsenal. Because, after all, it was so much easier to fall further into destruction than to actually build a good life out of the ruined parts fate had given him.

Sighing, he tried to let the rhythm of the waves and the wind clear his mind as he stared at the Atlantic ocean; or at least quiet it enough for him to decide what it was that he really wanted.

Coming around a particularly high sand bank, though, his eyes fell on the last thing he probably should have been occupying himself with.

The nanny.

She didn't see him, sprawled out as she was on a blanket, her feet high up in the air and swaying to a rhythm only she could hear as her eyes were trained to her Kindle. She must have had been drawn to the dunes for the same reasons that he had been, enjoying the peace and quiet of a breakfast in the dunes before the kids would be up and demanding her attention.

Feeling all sorts of conflicting and confusing feelings in that moment, Edward pushed on, tearing himself away from the enticing vista in front of him as he pressed on with his walk. He couldn't deny his mind often ventured back to the small, frail female with the fiery tongue, splayed across a checkerboard blanket nearby.

When he finally made it back to the beach house after his walk, the whole house was in an uproar; his sister running around barking orders as he kids and their nanny scrambled to bend to her wishes.

"Ah, there you are!" she acknowledged him as he stepped inside the house. "We're leaving for Manhattan soon. I've got a lot of stuff to do and Bella's taking the kids to the zoo today."

He smirked, watching as the nanny's faced paled in the distance. Unlike his sister, she already had a firm handle on how Edward's mind worked. And unlike his sister, she knew that offering an explanation like that was as good as extending an invitation.

"Mind if I tag along?" he asked, struggling to hide his grin as he caught the change in the nanny's mood with one eye. "It's been ages since I've been to the zoo." Packing on the extra charm he wrapped an arm around his sister, "Besides, I'd love to spend some time with my niece and nephew. It's been so long…"

"Uncle Edward's coming?" Jasper asked enthusiastically as he joined the rest of the family in the foyer. "Awesome!"

From that point on, he knew his sister wouldn't put a stop to his plans. "Fine," she acquiesced, though be it far from enthusiastically. "But if you cause any trouble for Bella or for the kids, I'm going to kill you in your sleep."

Grinning, he remembered some of the times she'd made that threat over the years. Growing up together, they'd always had a strong bond, both due to what had happened in the past and the way their lives had turned out since then. It had been a running joke between them to make that particular threat whenever they wanted to let the other know they were serious. "Wouldn't have it any other way," he replied, trying once again not to grin as he caught Bella's murderous look.

Obviously _someone_ didn't want him to tag along.

Catching up with her at the car, he quickly scanned his surroundings to make sure nobody was watching or listening before he leaned in muttered, "Someone obviously doesn't want me to tag along. What's the problem, little mousy? Afraid you won't be able to resist my charms?"

The flare of her nostrils made him chuckle as she stared at him like an angry little kitten, her hands balled into fists by her side. Ignoring his taunt, she narrowed her eyes into tiny slits as she hissed, "Just act like a decent human being for a change and we won't have any problems getting along."

Dropping her purse into the trunk of the car, she took her seat up front with the driver, leaving Edward even more intrigued and suddenly hard as hell as he scrambled to get into the back and hide his little problem before his sister or the kids would notice.

All through their drive, Edward tried not to stare at the person sitting directly in the front of him, but even though she barely managed to stick out from above the leather seats, he found his eyes kept on drifting back to where he knew she was sitting.

What was it about her that enraptured him so much?

She was pretty but not the kind of beauty he usually went for and, on top of that, she was about as difficult to get a handle on as a pan full of popping popcorn. Plus, he was pretty damn sure she hated his guts.

After dropping his sister off at some Upper East Side haunt for the ladies-who-lunch crowd, the driver brought them deeper into New York. As he dropped them off right next to the entrance to the Bronx Zoo with a promise to pick them up within fifteen minutes of their return call, Edward suddenly realized what the fuck he was doing. He was going on a day trip. To a zoo. With people probably recognizing him and wanting to take his picture. And on top of that he would have to play nice all day because he was sure the nanny was going to snap and feed him to the fucking lions if he actually did something that would hurt the kids.

Hell, he'd probably let her since his sister and her kids were some of the few people in the world he actually gave a damn about.

Things got off to a good, though be it tense start. Only a few feet into the zoo, Rose was pulling Bella's arm in the direction of the camels. And while Bella watched a jubilant Rose and a slightly grumpy Jasper, he quickly dashed into one of the gift shops to purchase a hat that would at least hide some of his face from the crowds.

As they got into one of the carts of the Wild Asia Monorail Edward couldn't help but maneuver himself so that he would be next to Bella while Jasper and Rose rode up front. "Hold on tight, little mousy," he whispered as the train set of, enjoying the little shiver his words caused. "We wouldn't want to see you get hurt."

Bella huffed, wishing the kids weren't there so that she could give that smug asshole back as good as she got. Being as it was, she just leaned forward, engaging the kids in a lively conversation about the animals on show while she felt Edward's hungry gaze travel over her body before resting on her butt. It felt dirty, but she would have been lying if she claimed it left her cold.

All in all, Edward had to admit that he enjoyed himself immensely that day. Apart from a couple of teens who came up to him somewhere near the gorillas, the intrusion of fans and other gawkers was minimal throughout the day and, as he started to relax, he realized how much he'd missed doing stuff like that. When he was still a kid, his grandparents hadn't taken them to the zoo, and the few trips he had been allowed to make under the watchful eye of his sister or his nanny, had been restricted to the Central Park Zoo. After all, his grandfather would have had a conniption if one of his charges would have set foot in the Bronx.

Besides, the company was great. Jasper and Rose loved walking around and seeing all of the animals as much as he did, and while the nanny's behavior towards him did thaw a little bit once she realized he wasn't going to whip out a needle and inject heroin into his arms in front of the kids, that didn't stop him from riling her up every chance he got. As much as his mind screamed 'danger' whenever he saw her, he found himself inexplicably drawn to her. And it wasn't just to toy with her and see how long it would be until she reached her breaking point. Or ply her with alcohol and empty flattery until she spread her legs and let him fuck her.

No, he wanted to get to know her.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Thoughts? <strong>_


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

><p><em><strong>LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.<strong>_

* * *

><p><strong>7.<strong>

_Insufferable_!

All but jumping out of the car, Bella couldn't wait to get away from the man who seemed dead set on pushing all of her buttons at once. And the worst thing was that he was completely unapologetic about it!

She had to admit that around the kids, he'd acted pretty decent. When he had inserted himself into the first family outing she would supervise, something she'd already been rather nervous about. She'd had horrible visions of inappropriate behavior and fights breaking out between the members of their small group and other strangers who just happened to rub him the wrong way. In fact, she half expected to stumble upon him fucking some groupie in a dark corner or feeding drugs to the giraffes in front of unsuspecting little families.

That didn't happen and, she had to admit it, for the most part she'd had a lovely day at the zoo. Even more so because she saw that the kids were having a blast.

The constant teasing and innuendos though, she could have definitely done without.

His behavior angered her, not just because it was completely inappropriate and made her feel uncomfortable. Around him, she was forced by sheer necessity to act like a young, angered ice queen—the very governess type out of young adult literature she was trying so hard _not_ to turn into—all while hiding the fact that sometimes, when she wasn't quite so annoyed, he left her quite hot and bothered.

But then, of course, she remembered where he'd been for the past six months and how he ended up there. If ever there was a sobering thought, then that was it.

She could remember when news of Edward's arrest had first broken. Edward had been at the height of his career when it happened, with his name taking up an almost permanent residence in the iTunes download lists and his tour completely sold out before one show had been played. Even her father, not the most up-to-date person when it came to pop culture, had made some remarks about how he was pleased to see 'young folk actually making music again instead of just noise'.

That was all over as soon as the less-than-wholesome aspects of Edward's life started to trickle down through the media. But then, of course, the images of the fresh-faced young musician made place for the image of a half-naked Edward Cullen getting shoved into a police car after being lifted from his bed by an insane amount of police men after one of his fans had ended up in hospital after getting drugged by the man himself. And by that time, her dad all out forbade her to ever listen to his music again.

It would probably be best, or so Bella concluded, not to mention the arrival of the new house guest during her next call with her dad.

Thinking about the face of that poor girl in the media— far too young to be thrust into the world of drugs and rock 'n roll—made the bile rise in her throat. Any feelings that might have emerged throughout their day at the zoo were immediately eradicated as she saw his behavior in a new light.

The teasing…

The innuendos…

From some innocent-bordering-on-sinful teasing, his behavior now seemed almost more sinister than annoying.

Did he see his next victim in her?

Was all of this just a little game to him? Was he just looking for something to do while he passed the time away during his exile in luxury?

Somehow, though, she still found it hard to marry the memory of Edward eating ice cream with his niece and nephew while staring at the bears with the image the media had painted of the heartless libertine who lived to ensnare young women into a life of vice.

Sighing, she made her way up to her room, settling on a long, hot shower to wash away the day before going down again for dinner. She wasn't exactly looking forward to it. After already spending the day with him, sitting at a table with only the two kids for a buffer would test her already frayed self-control. And with Carlisle and Esme both still stuck in town, and the kids too worn out from running around the zoo all day, she had no doubt that she was going to be his primary target that night.

Luck was on her side, though, as Bella came down to find Rose and Jasper sitting in the kitchen alone, the latter following her with the eager eyes of a teenaged boy waiting to be fed. "Wanna just order something tonight?" Bella asked, knowing that probably wasn't what Esme and Carlisle would prefer for their children's nourishment but felt too tired to care. "Where's your uncle, by the way?"

Jasper immediately dove for the drawer filled with menus of different places, leaving his sister to dispassionately shrug her shoulders as she muttered. "He went out, I guess."

"Out?" Bella asked as Jasper passed her the menu of a local Thai place. "So should we order for him or do you think he'll be out all night?"

Rose shrugged again. "He got a phone call while you were all in the shower and he left not long after. I don't think he'll be back here soon…he usually stays out for hours."

Bella sighed, her chest running cold as she thought about all the things Edward could be doing. Deciding she didn't care anyway, she pulled the menu towards her, her eyes scanned the various dishes until she found a couple she knew and liked. "Let's just fend for ourselves then, okay?" After placing the order, they retreated to the living room where they watched a movie while waiting for the food to arrive.

"Dad never lets us do this kind of stuff," Jasper muttered, contentedly patting his stomach as he stretched his long limbs out on the sofa, his feet in Bella's lap and his head resting against his sister's leg.

"That's not true," Rose started to argue. "When we're sick, he doesn't care if we eat in the living room."

"Yeah, but then you're sick, so it's not fun anymore." Jasper sighed, his shoulders set in a hard, rigid line. "I just wish he'd get off my back a little. He's always pestering me about stuff he wants me to do."

"That's because you always break the rules," Rose countered, shoving her brother's head away from her lap as she pulled her legs up towards her torso. "Maybe if you behaved a little bit better, he'd be home more."

"I'm sure your father would be home more if he could, but he's very busy at work," Bella intervened before their father's absence caused an argument between the siblings. Inside, though, her heart was breaking for both of them and her dislike for Carlisle was growing fast. "Has either of you ever tried talking to him? Maybe if you'd let him know that you miss him, Rose, or that you see the world in a different shade of color, Jasper, then he would understand."

Rose looked hopeful but her hopes were dashed when her brother let out a sarcastic snort. "Tough chance!"

"How can you know that when you're not even trying!" Rose snapped, her eyes fiery as she jumped up from the couch. "All you ever do is try to make him angry!" And with that she stormed out of the room and up the stairs, her bedroom door slamming shut a couple of moments later.

"She can be such a bitch sometimes!" Jasper growled and Bella could see him clamming up in front of her; the mental distance only preceded a physical one as Jasper too, got up from the sofa and retreated to the music room where he got lost in loud, angry rock.

Bella sighed, picking up the trash and carefully made sure that noting was out of place before she stepped out onto the deck to get some fresh air. As day had given way to evening, the wind had picked up; her hair blew around her face as she stood out and watched the last rays of sunlight disappear over the water. It did her good to stand out there, her eyes closed and her arms wrapped around herself to ward off the slight chill in the air as she slowly tried to ease away the stress that had built over a day of treading lightly.

It was an exercise her mother had taught her, so long ago when things had still been perfect and crime and grief had been things young Bella saw only on television shows.

"_Close your eyes, my little heart, and let your arms dangle next to your body_,_" Renee whispered in her ear. Her motherly pride soared as she watched her little daughter; thick, brown curls bounding in the wind and her perfect rose-bud mouth slightly opened. _

_Bella, meanwhile, was trying her best to please her mom, her brows furrowed in concentration as she tried with all her might to relax. "Like this?" _

"_Just like that," Renee assured her precious little worry-wart. At first, she had been overjoyed that her daughter had inherited her father's careful, introvert nature instead of her own expressive exuberance but lately she'd been worried that her sweet, serious little girl might one day fall victim to her own tendency to take on the weight of the world. "Now imagine each gust of wind flows straight through your mind, taking away one worry at a time until your head is completely empty of bad things and full of happiness again." _

Letting her arms dangle next to her body, Bella tried to recreate that exercise, just like she had done countless of times throughout the years. And just like always, it worked. Though never as good as it had that day, with her mom by her side.

It was only once she stopped focusing on herself and the wind, that her ears started to pick up something else; a muffled tune floating up from below, severely distorted by the wind but still beautiful.

Opening her eyes, Bella slowly drifted towards the edge of the deck, her eyes scanning out into the darkness before coming to rest on a single figure, cloaked in darkness, sitting on a bench on the secluded side of the property, away from the wind and prying eyes.

Or so he probably thought himself to be.

Even in the darkness, it wasn't hard to make out who he was or what he was doing; the constant stop and start of the acoustic guitar and the jumbled, muttered phrases he tried to marry to the sounds his fingers plucked from the strings made it glaringly obvious.

It was Edward.

And he was playing a song she'd never heard before. It had to be new because even though her dad had made his disapproval of the man and everything he produced known, Bella had felt herself unable to stop listening to his songs or look out for new ones. She'd never really cared for the man behind the music—pop culture and its obsessing over the private lives of celebrities had never held any appeal to her—but music…music had always moved her.

As she stood there and listened, veiled by darkness and unseen by the object of her rapt fascination, Bella's mind was screaming at her to walk away; both because it was rude to invade an artist's privacy like that, and because she really didn't trust herself around him.

She hated him.

But most of all, she hated the flurry of emotions he inspired within her.

But he was bad: bad for her as well as bad for humanity in general.

However, as she stood there, enraptured by the song, part of her was beginning to doubt her preconceived notions about the man behind it. After all, how could a man who produced such sweet music and whose words seemed to come straight from the purest part of a tormented heart be bad?

* * *

><p><em><strong>Thoughts?<strong>_


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

><p><em><strong>LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.<strong>_

* * *

><p><strong>8.<strong>

_He hadn't even wanted to visit his grandparents. His grandma smelled funny and always pinched his cheeks. Edward didn't like her, even though she always gave him candy. He didn't like his grandfather either; he was so strict and angry, always commenting on how Edward behaved…although Edward did his very best to be a good boy. _

_And he didn't like their house either. It was too big; your footsteps echoed when you walked and you were never allowed to make any noise or run along the long corridors. In spite of the candy, both his grandparents were cold people, living in a cold, big house. _

_In that moment, as he waited for his mother and father to finish saying goodbye to them, he almost envied his sister. She'd been sick all night and therefore had been allowed to stay at home with their nanny while a vehemently protesting Edward had been strapped securely into the backseat as his parents schlepped him out of the city and onto the road leading towards the Masens' imposing upstate retreat._

_He was tired; a whole day of being on his best behavior had completely worn him out. And after being a good, quiet boy all day, he couldn't even find joy in the little specks of snow falling from the sky as they walked out towards the car. The minute his mother strapped him into the backseat again, kissing his head as she told him how proud she was of him, he was out like a light. _

_The next thing he knew, there were screeching tires; his mom cried out as the still sleepy Edward caught a flash of a passing deer as the car started to spin on the slippery road. _

_The car plunged downward as it crashed through the barrier and into the deep before landing with a heartbreaking crush. _

_There was nothing, but blackness. _

_Then pain. _

_Edward cried, waking up to find it hadn't been a nightmare. He couldn't move. He couldn't see. His hand was wet and he knew it was blood coming out of him somewhere._

"_Mom?" His throat constricted as panicked sobs started to work their way out of his chest. More pain. "Dad?" _

_It seemed like forever that he was alone, but then he could hear a low voice. Broken. "E-Edward? Honey? Are you okay?" _

_No, he wasn't, but he had to be a brave boy for his mom. He couldn't see her but he knew she needed him. "My head hurts," he answered, "What happened, Mommy? Is Daddy okay?" _

"_I love you…Edward," his mother spoke. _

_And then it was quiet. _

Shocked out of his bad dream, Edward sat up rigidly, sweat dampening his skin and sticking his hair to his forehead as he tried to slow his breathing. Closing his yes, he leaned back again. He wasn't going to close his eyes again because he knew it would happen all over again. He'd _see_ it all over again.

Watch them die again.

Scratching the scruff on his chin, he set his head against the headboard as slowly but surely the chill of the night air brought his heartbeat back to normal and his senses to the present. Apparently the downside to being out of jail was that with the lack of noises coming from the other inmates, his sleep was deep enough for the nightmares to return.

That was not a good thing.

Immediately, his newly calmed senses were drawn to the pair of jeans that he'd slung over a chair earlier that night. Or more accurately: the little packet stuck inside one of the pockets.

James had said they were untraceable…that the standard drug testing he would have to undergo as part of his parole wouldn't pick them up.

But still…did he really want to go back down that road?

Yes, said a significant part of him.

_No_.

With the memory of his mother so fresh on his mind, he couldn't bring himself to wash her away with a dose of _Special K_, not for all the oblivion in the world.

Not that the thought had stopped him before.

Edward just didn't want to risk it. He'd only just gotten out and with his life still so precariously up in the air, taking chances with shit he knew nothing about just didn't seem like the greatest idea in the world. Again, that hadn't stopped him before, though this time it was different. Because he was staying with his sister and he could just as easily drag her and the children down with him if he fell.

And that was something he'd never wanted to risk.

He knew he was probably the worst kind of excuse for a human being for all the pain he had already caused in his miserable existence. As little as he cared about them, he'd proved a complete disappointment to his grandparents as he'd made the final years of their life a lot harder than he should have. He fucked groupies just because they were there, never cared about what he was doing beyond getting a quick fuck to satisfy his own needs.

Even the one he'd ended up in jail for…

Seeing her face plastered all over the news he'd felt like such an idiot for not seeing how young she was but, then again, if he would have noticed it, would that have stopped him? He liked to think it would have but…he knew himself. Edward had just gotten off stage; the high of performing soon elongated by the high of a few lines of coke. Just like always, there'd been drugs and alcohol aplenty backstage and, because he didn't want to be a complete bastard and offer nothing in return to the girls who so willingly offered up their bodies, he'd shared. He didn't think anything of it.

He never did.

All he thought about was himself…until he was forced to face the consequences of his own ego.

And yet that little packet of pills still taunted him.

Jumping out of his bed, he took two steps towards his pants, only to come to a sudden stop. His hands lodged into his hair as he let out a frustrated growl.

He wanted it.

He didn't want to want it.

When he'd been released from prison, only a couple of days ago, his mind had been set on getting his life back sooner rather than later.

Back to the groupies.

Back to the drugs.

Back to not giving a fuck.

Hearing Aro threaten to take his way his music, though, had hit home. And the longer he thought about it, the more he knew he had to change shit if he wanted to keep doing the only thing he lived for.

_Get away. Now!_ Quickly donning a t-shirt and some sweatpants, he slid into his shoes, carefully avoiding the area where his jeans hung. _Get out of here!_ Throwing the doors open he stepped out into the cool, early morning air. The deserted beach greeted him as his footsteps sped into a jog as he jumped off the deck and into the sand.

_Free_.

Away from temptation.

For the longest time, Edward just ran; the strain of pushing his feet forward in the loose sand pulled his mind away from the dangerous temptations that had occupied it and the freshness of the sea breeze blew away the remnants of his nightmare.

After a while, though, he knew he had to get back.

Running had served to clear his mind of the most prominent of the dangers that had plagued it. In the light of morning, he knew the dream was a sign that his mind had been disturbed when he'd gone to bed; the usual result of dipping into the pool of emotions he only dared to enter whenever he was writing music.

The drugs…they'd been a bad idea. It had seemed logical the other night, when his backup guitarist and main supplier had called him up to commiserate on Edward's forced exile from the city and its temptations and asked if there was anything he needed. He'd been agitated after his fight with Carlisle and in need of something to dull his mind. That, and the nanny had started to get to his head and God only knew she was a distraction he didn't need in his life. He'd wanted to escape, and since the conditions of his parole had made a physical escape impossible, it would have to be a mental one. Tough that road was also filled with court-ordered potholes.

No, the drugs had been a dreadful scheme; he knew that, even if his mind truly had trouble catching up with reality.

His feet dragged on his way back and he wished he'd had the presence of mind to bring a bottle of water; the sweat dripping from his hair in steady drops as his breathing slowly returned to normal. The last remnants of night had given way to daylight while he'd been running, the seagulls began screeching above him as a few more joggers started to appear on the horizon.

It was when he neared the house, though, that he met with the greatest temptation of all. She'd been fresh on his mind the previous evening, when he'd compose one of the best songs he'd ever created. She was a drug, too, and one much more dangerous than the Ketamine his friend had supplied him with. Resting on her stomach, much the same as she had the last time he encountered her in the dunes, she was pure temptation poured into the most bewitching form.

_Bella_.

Even her name sounded pretty and innocent, rolling off his tongue like a one-word poem. While he could see that her life had been spiked by pain—the heavy kind of pain that leaves a mark on you—he could also see that she was the complete polar opposite to the world he lived in; the world of sex, drugs and rock 'n roll. She was proud parents, healthy living and sensible choices..She would never end up in jail or use another human being just as a means to an end. Her mind wasn't so weighed down by regret that she needed drugs to simply be able to live.

No, she was everything a parent could wish for after bringing a child into the world.

And looking at her, unaware of the sick fuck who was watching at her, he couldn't help but wonder what that kind of life was like.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Thoughts?<strong>_


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

><p><em><strong>LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.<strong>_

* * *

><p><strong>9.<strong>

It was becoming a morning ritual.

Bella inhaled deeply as she opened the terrace doors, making sure to skip out quietly after leaving a note on the kitchen counter. After staying in the Cullen's home for the past couple of days, she knew the chances of either of the children being awake before ten in the morning were slim but she didn't want to risk it anyway.

She'd always liked the morning air, even if she hated getting up early. It was a strange little dichotomy which, she had to admit, held no small amount of irony. If she'd had it her way, she would have been the last one to rise, like she had been back in Forks, and she probably would have been. In this strange, new environment, however, Bella found she rose almost with the sun.

There was something about the few quiet hours it afforded her that made her feel not the slightest bit sorry. Tired, yes, but also strangely upbeat and more optimistic than she'd felt in years.

As hard as it had been to leave everything she knew and loved behind Bella was starting to think that maybe that was what lay at the base of this sudden optimism. Home, as much as she loved it, was still covered in a thick blanket of grief and loss. Though Charlie had only moved his daughter to the remote little town of Forks after his beloved wife had died, he had taken almost everything of hers with them that he could pack. Pictures, ornaments and furniture that were all somehow connected to the memory of who she was still sat proudly in their house.

While Bella had never once in her life wanted to have that any other way, she had to admit that even though she loved how it kept the memory of her loving, vivacious mother alive, it was also a constant reminder of the fact that they'd lost her.

Being away from home allowed Bella to put a little bit more distance between herself and her grief; she would always love her mother and cherish each and every memory she had of her, but Bella also realized that if she wanted to really honor her mother's memory, she had to move on with her life. She only had to look at her father to see what would happen if she didn't.

And so Bella inhaled deeply, breathing in the fresh air as her feet sunk into the sand; her footsteps heavy as she plowed through it to her favorite spot in the dunes. It was a little crater about eighty feet away from the house; remote enough for her not to be seen but close enough for her to keep an eye on the kids' bedroom windows. When they woke up, she would see.

Dropping the little satchel she'd made out of a blanket to the ground, she set to work untangling the knot and unpacking the few things she needed for her perfect breakfast: a travel mug filled to the bring with black, but very sweet coffee, a bagel and, of course, her Kindle.

The peace and quiet she craved, though, didn't last. Before half an hour had past, Bella felt that prickling sensation at the base of her skull that she always felt when she was being watched. Sighing, she took a sip of her almost lukewarm coffee before she turned around and saw her suspicions confirmed.

Groaning, she wished she'd never turned around. At least then, she could be oblivious to the grinning face of Edward Masen, staring at her from the top of the valley she was hiding out in.

_Well, damn. _

"What are you doing here?" she asked, wishing immediately her voice hadn't come off as abrasive as it had. Knowing him, he would probably see her gruffness as a challenge.

"I'm hurt, mousy!" he cried in mock indignation, his shoes slipping on the sand as he worked his way down into 'her' dip. "Here I am, scouring half the seaside for a nice place to sit and watch the tide roll in, only to be chased away the moment I find the perfect spot."

"You can't even see the ocean from here," Bella grumbled, the benefits of rising early vanished like snow before the sun. "Now go along and watch the ocean from the deck or something. This spot is already taken."

His smirk was insufferable, making Bella's hackles rise like the needles on a porcupine as he leaned in, his face almost within striking distance. "Is it, little mousy? That's funny, because I don't see your name on it."

Grabbing a little stick of wood, Bella narrowed her eyes as she leaned over the edge of the blanket, drawing her name into the sand in big, swirly letters. "And now it is."

"You're really not _mousy_ at all, are you?" he mused, his eyes shining with mirth as he watched Bella's frustration grow. "In fact, I don't think I can go on calling you 'mousy' any more. How does 'kitten' sound?"

"About as obnoxious as your first nickname but nothing I say will stop you. So eat your heart out." Biting her lip, Bella felt about as trapped as a pig in a slaughterhouse. There was nowhere she could go. If she stayed in her little spot, he would stay as well. If she left, he would follow her. "Why do you always have to be obnoxious? Why can't you just leave me alone?"

"I'm bored," he admitted, his demeanor changing as he sighed. "Staying in the Hamptons really isn't as fun as it's cracked up to be. Once you've seen the sights, visited the shops and been to every damn seafood and boating festival at least once, you realize soon enough that it's just the same boring rich people you'd already met in Manhattan but now they're dressed in Polo's and Bermuda shorts." Dropping a grin that was probably meant to magically make her pants fall off or something, he added, "You, sweet kitten, are the only interesting addition I've noticed so far."

"I'm charmed," Bella huffed. "But if you're so bored here, why stay?"

He shrugged again, the brawn slowly evaporating from his posture as he looked out over Bella's shoulder. "The powers that be want me to lay low and be a good citizen for a while."

"That doesn't seem like a bad plan," Bella mused wryly, thinking about the headlines, "though while I'm sure the parents of Manhattan will rest a little easier knowing their children are out of your reach, I'm not sure your sister feels the same."

"What kind of asshole do you take me for? I fucking love those kids. I'd never do anything to hurt Jasper or Rose," Edward argued passionately, losing his cool, charming cover for a mere moment as he let his true, more passionate self shine through.

"You had no problem feeding drugs to somebody else's kid!" Bella snapped, her hands digging into the sand, drawing strength from the earth's energy as his anger flared up again.

"I didn't know she was a minor, okay?" Edward cried, his eyes wild with the passion of despair and frustration. "I've seen the fucking pictures in the newspapers but I swear she looked nothing like that on the night. If I'd have known her real age, do you really think I would have offered her drugs?" Shaking his head, his eyes met hers, forcing her to see the truth in them as he went on. "I'm the last person to claim I'm a good man, kitten—hell, I'll even go as far as to say I'm a fucking asshole! However, I'm nowhere near the villain the press makes me out to be either."

Narrowing her eyes, Bella held his stare; a lot of words being said between the two of them with their eyes, without either speaking a word of that aloud. "Then…who _are_ you?" she finally asked, her heart pounding with uncertainty as she realized she was on the brink of something she couldn't quite put her finger on.

It was big, though.

"I don't really know." The raw uncertainty of his words made Bella feel for him as more of the enigma started to unravel. Stripped of his cocky arrogance, Bella could see that all of his antagonism was just a front to keep people at bay. He was hiding himself, just like she had done for the longest time. And maybe that was why she managed to spot his fakery from a mile away.

It takes one to know one, after all.

However, where his mask was easy enough to spot, the reason why formed more of an enigma. Because why would a man who had everything handed to him on a silver platter choose to push everything away and spit in the face of the people who only tried to help him? Was he really that self-destructive or was there more to his story? Had sinister forces pulled him into a life that no more suited him than most of Kim Kardashian's wardrobe suited her, or was he the sinister force that pulled everyone around him down?

Before that morning, Bella would have been inclined to believe the worst—and even at that moment there was still a large part of her that did—but stripped bare of the obnoxious façade he'd put up, she was starting to see the man underneath.

And, she had to admit that this man was starting to become more fascinating by the minute.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Thoughts?<strong>_

_**Happy holidays to everyone celebrating. See you next week. **_


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

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><p><strong>10.<strong>

_I don't really know. _

They were the last words Edward had wanted to admit. In all his life, he'd always tried to escape them, labeling himself as musician, brother, fuck-up or whatever name fitted at that given time. The truth was, though, that the answer he had given Bella was the only answer that rung true.

He didn't know.

He'd never known, and didn't really want to.

Instead, he had crafted himself almost into a caricature of what he thought he should be: the tortured artist who self-medicated on drugs to escape his troubled past and who took everything that had been handed to him for granted.

"When I was little, I wanted to be a pilot," he started, surprising Bella and even himself by just beginning to babble along like some lunatic. "It always amazed me how they managed to fly hundreds of people safely from one spot to another." He chuckled, remembering scouring the sky for signs of moving planes or the trails of condensation they left behind. "But then, two weeks before she died, mom played this Bob Dylan record to me and from that point on, the only thing I wanted to learn was how to be him."

"You wanted to be Bob Dylan?" Already, Edward could see that Bella thought he wasn't taking her question seriously. Not that he could blame her, because had he really taken anything seriously since he set foot inside his sister's house?

Well, apart from her, then.

Shaking his head, he tried to make her see the honesty in his words. "I didn't want to _be_ him, I wanted to be _like_ him; the kind of person who could tell stories in songs that would move people…get them to think and act differently or make them see the world in a different light. If there's anything I admire about people like Dylan, Neil Young or Crosby, Stills and Nash, it's the way they captured people's souls in their songs…how they sang about the things that happened to them or their friends, but at the same time, they could be singing about you. I wanted to do that, too."

"And you came to that realization when you were, what, ten years old?" Bella huffed skeptically, her fingers playing with the frayed edges of the blanket.

"Six," Edward corrected her, chuckling at the way her eyebrows shot up a little higher, "and of course back then, it just seemed cool to make music. It wasn't like I was some kind of child-prodigy or something. It's just…that music kinda struck a chord with me, you know? It was just a simple case of 'I like this kinda stuff and I want to be like that when I grow up'. The deeper shit only came when I got older."

Cocking her head, her eyes locked with his again; assessing, weighing, concluding. "If you like making music so much, then why do all the other stuff? I mean, I'm not really an expert with those kinds of things, but it seems to me like doing drugs and getting yourself arrested and thrown in jail aren't exactly helping you get to where you want to be in life."

"Ask Johnny Cash! I seem to remember he wrote some pretty poignant and classic songs about doing drugs _and_ ending up in jail." Edward chuckled before turning serious again; his hand lodged in his hair as he tried to find the right words. "I don't know why I do that shit. I guess part of it is because I can. You know, after a while it gets kinda fun to play the game and see how far you can really go before someone calls you out on it." He shrugged, realizing only then how fucking pompous and stupid that sounded. "The rest is because it makes life on the road a little easier. The drugs, I mean, not the getting arrested. I pretty much hated _that_ shit."

"You could have said no to drugs," Bella argued, cringing at her own clichéd choice of words. "You don't strike me as a complete idiot, in spite of the way you've acted the past couple of days. I don't understand how someone who can speak so intelligently and passionately about music can be dumb enough to throw your career—your chance to _make_ music and have that influence on people's lives—away from drugs."

"I know." Edward shrugged, breaking off a few tough pails of dune grass. "But if there's one thing about me you should know, it's that I'm a spineless son of a bitch first and foremost. When you live in the world I belong to, taking drugs is much easier than abstaining." He chuckled, closing the door again before it could lead him to an even scarier place than he was at that moment. "Besides, life's so much more fun when you're high."

"I don't believe you," she countered, sticking her chin up in the air as she leveled him with a defiant gaze. Holding it, he quite enjoyed the way her eyes narrowed in frustration as she let out a small, adorable growl when she realized he wasn't going to budge. Rising, she all but threw him from the blanket as she scrambled to assemble her stuff. "If you want to go on fooling yourself, Edward, go ahead. But don't forget that _I_ know the truth."

As much as Edward wanted to claim victory from that particular battlefield—after all, he had chased her away—he knew that with that parting remark, she'd won.

But so did he.

Making his way back to the house, his mind was spinning as out of control as it had when he'd made his hasty escape. This time, though, it was running wild on creativity, as words and melodies exploded through his brain like fireworks.

Locking himself away in the music room all day and night, the outlines of what was shaping up to be his first record in more than a year was starting to take shape; a record about love, suffering, longing and heartbreak…just like every single damn record in the shops those days. What set the songs he composed in those frantic twenty four hours apart from the rest, though, was the passionate, almost feverishly haunting way in which they were written.

They were naked.

They were pure.

They were him; a version of himself he wasn't even ready to admit was there.

They were the truth.

The only interruptions in his creative spree were the few bathroom breaks he was forced to take and a distraction in the form of a knock on the door that came just after the sun had set for the night.

Growling, his gaze lingered on the door for a moment; the rest of him not bothered enough to get up and see who dared disturb them. It couldn't be Esme or the kids, as they knew the music room was out of bounds whenever he was in it so it could only be two people.

And one of them, Edward was pretty sure, was still stuck in town.

"Edward?"

Even in spite of his chagrin at being disturbed, the corners of his mouth couldn't help but lift up into a smile at the sound of her voice. Still, he didn't have time to be social, not when he had the makings of one of his best albums yet rolling around in his brain. "I don't want to be disturbed."

Not that she was deterred by his gruff response. Or instead of backing away like his words had intended, he could hear the sound of a door opening and shutting behind him, the smell of food and _her_ making him dizzy with desire. Knowing there was no battling the temptations, he sighed and turned around. "I thought I told you I didn't want to be disturbed?"

Rolling her eyes, she committed yet another sin that would have been cause for capital punishment had it not been for the person committing it: she put the plate on top of the pristine Bösendorfer piano he'd equipped his sister's house with after having suffered through an inferior instrument the first time he visited. He couldn't play an inferior instrument and he certainly couldn't create on one. And when on stage his guitar was his instrument of preference, for some reason Edward found it easier to compose on a piano.

Bella, however, knew of no evil as she put the food down, her look measured as it traveled up and down his slightly rumpled form. "That's all fine and dandy, but if you don't grab something to eat every now and then you're going to keel over."

"And who died and made you the expert on a musician's feeding habits?" Edward grumbled, though he had to admit that by that time most of his bad humor was fake.

"Believe it or not, but for some weird, masochistic reason, I have started to actually care about you," she admitted, much to Edward's delight. "I just can't go to sleep knowing you probably won't eat until you're done."

"Fair enough." Edward nodded, his mouth already filled with half a chicken leg. "So how does a girl from Bumfuck, Washington get so smart about what an artist needs?" Patting his piano bench, he scooted down, allowing her to sit next to him.

"My dad might not have been an artist like you but when he was on a case, he wouldn't stop until he solved it," she replied, reminding him about the police chief dad his sister had told him about. "If it hadn't been for me throwing some food at him at regular intervals, I think he would have starved himself in no time."

"You two sound very close," Edward remarked around a bite of food. "You must miss him." He still knew how it had felt to be without his sister for the first time. In fact, the longing and pain he had felt were part of what had made him end up the way he had.

"Yes, I do." Bella agreed with a sad smile, stealing a little bit of chicken off his plate. "But we both knew this was going to happen at some point; I couldn't stay home forever." Sighing, her eyes flashed over the sheets of music paper and the scraggly mess of notes he'd scribbled on them. "You've been writing?"

He nodded. "Once I get going, I can't stop. I have to create…it's like a force within me, demanding my attention." Dragging the final piece of bread through the leftover juices of the chicken, he scooted forward. "Do you want me to play you something?"

The enthusiasm of Bella's nod made him chuckle as it confirmed that might have been what had lured her to the music room in the first place. "Is it okay if I stay here or do you need more room?"

"You're fine where you are, kitten," he assured her. "Most of the wide gestures you see a concert pianist make are just for show, I think. At least I've never felt the need to spazz out whenever I'm playing."

Taking a deep breath, his fingers started on one of the first songs he'd created that day; the knowledge that she was sitting right next to him when it was her memory that had brought those notes to life made him feel equally elated and naked.

He was offering her himself…his art…his mind.

And the look in her eyes when he finished, told him she understood. "That was...it was _everything_," she stammered once the last note had faded in the air.

"Thanks," he whispered, feeling oddly shy all of a sudden. Looking up, their eyes locked and that same, strange thing happened again where they seemed to be able to look right in each other's souls without saying a damn word.

It scared him but this time, he wasn't the one to back down first. He could feel it in the air, the ease in her body growing rigid as she stood up. "I'll leave you so you can get back to it, then," she breathed, her eyes slightly panicked as she all but dashed away from him in much the same way as he had the previous day.

But that look…

It was more than enough to keep him going, his hands already itching to continue.

By the time another morning tide rolled in and the room was illuminated pink from the coming dawn, he slumped forward, his eyes blurring as his mind was finally spent. All night his brain had been at work; the one image of her spurring it on and on as more songs started to take shape; their crude outlines splattered all over the sheet music that surrounded him like a paper sea.

Still, Edward did not go to bed. Since the high of creativity had settled, there was another craving deep inside him that was clamoring to be stilled. The vision settling behind his eyelids whenever he closed them, becoming more clear and demanding the longer he had been without her. And after the way she had cared for him the previous night, who was he not to return the favor?

So instead of heading upstairs to his bed, he snuck through the dark house, using the faint illumination of the rising sun to navigate until he managed to slip out undetected. A short trip later and he had everything he needed, his head pounding with sleep and caffeine withdrawal as he added the finishing touches to his scheme and waited.

For as much as the creativity had left him drunk with relief and satisfaction, he knew that underneath it, there had been only one drug to fuel this sudden writing spree.

It was _her_.

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><p><em><strong>Thoughts?<strong>_


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

><p><em><strong>LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.<strong>_

* * *

><p><strong>11.<strong>

Waking up to the sound of the sea was starting to become a habit to Bella. Stretching, she enjoyed the sounds of the waves and birds drifting in through her open window for a while before she flung her legs over the side of the bed.

The previous day had been…different.

When she'd met Edward in the dunes, she couldn't have foreseen that she would walk away with even more conflicted feelings about him than she'd had beforehand. But then again, had her feelings about him ever been quite as conflicted as she had wanted herself to believe?

On the phone with her dad the previous night, she'd vehemently agreed that there would never be anything between her and Edward, including friendship. In the official account of events, Edward was just staying at his sister's place and annoying the hell out of her simply by being in the same space as she was.

But that wasn't true, though.

From the first time she'd set eyes on him, she'd felt something drawing her in towards him. Even when he was annoying the hell out of her by calling her 'little mousy' or taunting her all through their outing to the zoo, the attraction she had felt couldn't be denied.

And that left her rather conflicted.

Bella was a good girl. All throughout her life she'd tried to make the good choices. She excelled at school, and had picked a good, steady boyfriend and waited an acceptable amount of time before giving him her virginity. She interned at the local attorney's office instead of lounging at the beach with her friends during her summer break from school. And finally, she moved to the other side of the country to pursue a legal education because of the excellent stepladder it provided for her career.

Falling for an ex-con (and was he even an _ex_-con?) certainly wasn't a part of her plans.

And yet somehow she couldn't stop herself from falling.

He'd been in her head all through the previous day; that look in his eyes when they'd had their strange, silent communications in the dunes not letting go of her no matter how hard she tried to focus on Jasper and Rose. She'd seen through it then—through the image he wanted to world to see and into the insecure, damaged soul that lay beyond that. And that soul was one she desperately wanted to get to know.

By the time she had returned from their little shopping spree in town, Esme had come back from Manhattan with a million stories about the work she'd done and, much to the horror of the children, the impromptu date night she'd had with her husband. Yet all throughout their lunch, Bella's eyes were drawn to that one closed door, barely visible at the end of the hallway and the things that were going on behind that door.

Even Esme had noticed; her brow arched upward as she gazed at her young employee. Her warning not to go in there under any circumstance while her brother was writing had rebuked Bella only for so long before the urge to do exactly the opposite had gotten stronger again.

She was curious, that went without saying, but she also felt a desperate need to know that he was taking care of himself. After all, even his sister had admitted to worrying about him whenever he locked himself into a room for God only knew how long. She couldn't even say if he ate, or slept, and the only way she knew that he did sometimes visit the bathroom was because she'd heard him flush the toilet at three in the morning one time.

Bella just couldn't live with the fact that he was willingly starving himself and depriving his body of all the things it needed to function just because the urge to create was stronger than the need to look after himself. Unlike his sister, she just couldn't take that for a fact and live with it and so, after everyone had gone to bed, she'd snuck out of her room and fixed him a plate of cold leftovers from their dinner.

The things that had followed after she'd gone to him still completely threw her mind. He'd been the same, but yet, so different; the creative side of him tapping into that part he liked to keep hidden and bringing it more to the surface. She'd seen _him_, that night. Not the person he wanted people to see.

And that song…

Bella could feel her skin flush as she thought about it. It had been so full of raw emotion and an unfulfilled desire for something out of reach that she wasn't quite sure which emotion had prevailed when she listened to him: heartbreak or admiration.

Maybe it had been both?

It had been such an intimate moment, as she sat there and listened; his arm brushed along her side as he pressed the piano keys and bared his true self in front of her. It had been another peek into the soul of the Edward she desperately wanted to know…the one he seemed to be so afraid to embrace.

Sighing, she wondered if he'd ever let her get to know him…the _real_ him. The fleeing glimpses she had gotten of him where enough to pique her interest. No, it was more than that. They were enough to stir a desire so strong it scared her and a longing that made her miss him even when he was only a few rooms away.

She was falling for him. She knew it; even when she couldn't say she knew exactly what she was falling for. There was a pull, sucking her in one word and one shared look at a time until the feeling had lodged so deep within her that it couldn't be extinguished by rational thought.

The rational side of her was screaming that she was making a bad mistake.

As she slowly went through the motions of getting showered and dressed, she was just about ready to conclude that the chances of that happening were about as slim as a snowstorm passing through the Sahara when she found a little note, slipped underneath the door.

Folding it open, her heart started to pound a little harder in her chest as she recognized the neat, cursive swirls of handwriting she'd seen splashed all over music paper the previous day.

_Time to return the favor._

_Meet me in the dunes when you're awake._

_E._

Curious about what he'd written about returning a favor, Bella quickly slipped on some shoes before she tiptoed down the stairs. The past couple of days had schooled her in the quickest and quietest way to sneak out of the house without waking the family up.

Stepping out, she breathed in the fresh air, her footsteps pattering along the deck before she hopped onto the sand. The wind tugged at her hair and the baggy sweatshirt that used to belong to her father as she plowed through the loose sand, her steps determined as she kept her eyes on her destination.

Her dune.

_Their_ dune.

Climbing to the top of the slope, her footsteps faltered as she peeked over the edge to find Edward sitting on top of a checkerboard blanket, an overfilled picnic basket sitting next to him with a thermos sticking out of it.

"Ah, you're here!" He grinned as soon as he spotted her. "I was beginning to think I was going to have to eat all this stuff on my own!"

Barely keeping on her two feet as she awkwardly slid down the slope, Bella started towards him, her smile mimicking his. "You brought me breakfast?"

He shrugged and for a moment Bella thought she saw the beginnings of a blush staining his cheeks. It was only a moment, though, before he hid his face as he started to unpack the basket. "After you were nice enough to feed me last night, I figured I should return the favor."

Snorting, Bella sat down opposite of Edward, taking a cup of steaming coffee as she picked out a few of the treats Edward had produced from the basket. "And since when did you turn into a gentleman?"

Laughing aloud, his face took on a boyish, totally relaxed look as he tried his best to fake indignation. "I'm hurt, kitten! What makes you think I'm not a perfect gentleman?"

"Uhm….everything?" Both snickered at Bella's statement, the fact that most of the time Edward was anything _but_ a gentleman so blatantly obvious that no factual reminder was needed.

"The concept of courteous behavior isn't completely foreign to me, though," Edward acknowledged after a while, chewing his way around half a cream cheese bagel.

Leaning back on her elbows with her eyes closed, Bella let the sweet rays of early morning sun caress her face. "Then what happened?"

Shrugging, Edward took a moment or two to organize his thoughts, thinking carefully about what he would reveal and, more importantly, what to keep bottled up. "When you get drilled a certain way by people who have no business being anywhere near kids, your gut instinct is to kind of do the exact opposite as much as you fucking can."

Bella was on the brink of coming back with another witty one-liner when she caught something in Edward's face that made her close her mouth abruptly before any words could slip from it. "But once you've reached a certain age…" she started cautiously, letting her words drift off into the sea breeze.

His eyes were startling in their honesty when they locked onto hers, his long, dexterous fingers crumbling a piece of his bagel as he once again weighed his words with care. "I was never allowed to be a kid, so I figure it was time to make up for it."

"Even when that means destroying yourself in the process?" Bella asked, her heart pounding faster with every tiny bit of the puzzle that was Edward Masen she could put in its place. "I mean, you're playing around with some pretty heavy stuff if the tabloids are to be believed."

"If you really knew me, you'd know there's not much left of me to destroy." Edward shrugged, the fences rising again as his face took on a hardness that saddened Bella to no end. "Not like a lot of people who would care about my destruction, anyways."

"That's not true," Bella was quick to argue. "Your fans care about you. And what about your sister and the kids?" _And her? _

"I'm not so vain as to think my fans wouldn't find another idol to worship before my body is cold," Edward answered bitterly. "And as for my sister and the kids…Yeah, they'd miss me but frankly the kids don't really know me, and Esme…" He shook his head, his mouth set in a hard line. "I sometimes get a feeling that she loves me more out of obligation—because she's the only one _left_ to love me—than anything else. And it's my own fault, really."

"Then quit making it so hard for people to love you!" Bella cried, unwittingly scooting closer to him. "You may think you're so good at hiding who you really are but I see you, Edward. You are a good man, even if you try so hard not to be. It's in your songs…in the way you are with Jasper and Rose but, most of all, it's in your eyes whenever your guard slips for a second or two."

The next thing she knew, his hands were on her, crushing her arms in their hold; her gasp drowned in the touching of his lips to hers. Desperate…demanding…beseeching…taking…giving…solidifying what they already knew was between them but had been too afraid to acknowledge.

It was the best kiss of her life.

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><p><em><strong>Thoughts?<strong>_


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

><p><em><strong>LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.<strong>_

* * *

><p><strong>12.<strong>

As Edward ran away from Bella, he was acutely aware of the fact that he was gasping. And it wasn't just because of the pace he was running. Or even from what could only be called the best fucking kiss of his entire life.

Nope, it was a full blown panic attack creeping up on him that made him wheeze.

What was it about that girl that made him want to reveal shit to her he'd never even thought about telling anybody else? How did she manage to strip him completely bare with just one look?

She made him want to be a good man—or at least a _better_ man. A man who could stand next to her and not be worried about the way he was tainting her beauty and innocence. The problem was, though, that he wasn't quite sure if he could ever live up to that expectation. As completely rotten and profoundly unredeemable as he felt, he'd long given up the thought of any sort of lasting love.

He just wasn't cut out for it.

His life on the road meant that any relationship—even his sister and her kids—would have to be handled through phone calls and FaceTime conversations whenever he was touring and then, of course, there were always the enticements of life on the road.

And he wasn't just talking about the drugs.

Even if Bella could ever find it in herself to live with the fact that sometimes he just needed to medicate on whatever uppers or downers were readily available around him to make his life remotely bearable, he wasn't sure if he could remain true to her.

He'd never tried.

Even back in the days when he had thought he was in love with a woman, monogamy had been about as far away from his lifestyle as the earth from the moon. There was no high that could compare to the one he felt when he came off stage; the exhilaration and pent up energy needed a place to go before they would explode out of him. He wanted to prolong that feeling, knowing that when it left him, the crash would be ferocious. And prolonging it worked best through other highs.

And sex was always so readily available on the road; even if he'd try to put a stop to groupies sneaking backstage, he knew it was pointless. He'd seen enough over the years to know that the most determined among them would always find a way to get in; they either knew someone on the other side of the fence or it was because they didn't hesitate to drop to their knees and suck some bouncer cock if it would get them past security.

And they always managed to get to him when he was weak.

Back in those days, Tanya had been in no illusion of what exactly went on when he was on the road. Edward deemed himself a 'class A asshole' but not even he would go as far as to cheat on a woman brave enough to call herself his girl. She'd been the only woman who'd stuck with him for longer than two months and Edward had thought she was okay with his lifestyle.

At least, that's what she had said.

When she was confronted with it, though, it seemed that she'd somehow fooled herself into thinking she could live with it when in reality she couldn't. And it had eaten at her until there was nothing left to fight for.

Edward wasn't going to stand by and let that happen again. Not to himself but most of all not to a good woman; a woman who deserved to be loved by a good man.

A man who would make her happy, instead of one who would only cause her worry and pain.

For Bella, he could almost see himself giving up the whole fucking thing. He hadn't as much as thought about another woman ever since he'd first met her and, though the pills James had brought him were still taunting him from the place where he'd safely stashed them, he had been able to resist their call. _Her_ call was simply stronger.

But would it last?

He wanted to be strong enough to answer that question with a resounding 'yes' but deep down inside he doubted himself. After all, when in his life had he ever mustered the strength to fight temptation? In all his years, he'd become accustomed to having everything brought to him on a silver platter, wherever and whenever he needed it.

Look at that morning.

And yet he couldn't bring himself to regret their kiss. Whatever kind of magic Bella Swan had wielded over him, it made him hunger for more, for in her eyes he could see a shimmer of hope for the man he might be and the future _that_ man might have.

With her.

So being as confused as he was, he let off steam in the only way he'd ever known: by making music. Locking himself back inside the music room, his doubts, fears and desires poured out of him through melodies until, by the end of the afternoon, he had nothing left to create. The strain of being awake for almost forty-eight hours finally caught up on him as he slumped over the piano, the relaxation of his fingers forced a dissonant chord from the finely tuned instrument.

Sighing, he carried his weary, bone-tired body across the hallway to his room, once more thanking his sister for the mercy of having a downstairs guestroom.

Sleep came easily, just as it always did after he'd had a creative outburst. Once he'd poured all of himself into his music and neither his mind nor his fingers had anything left to give in them, he just crashed. Sometimes it was only for a couple of hours before his nightmares started to catch up with him, sometimes it was almost a day of blissful nothingness before he'd wake. But it always ended the same: bleeding faces above destroyed bodies and the knowledge his life was never going to be as good as it used to be again. It had been the same way for almost twenty-five years.

And people still wondered why he'd turned to drugs?

Waking up a few hours later in a familiar state of breathlessness and with his clammy hair sticking to his forehead, he wasted no time lamenting his state. Instead he got through his tried and tested routine of showering, shaving and putting on some clothes, his tense muscles slowly relaxing under the rays of burning hot water and the cool of his aftershave driving away the cobwebs his dreams had left behind.

Throwing the patio doors of his room open, he wasn't surprised to see that day had turned into night. What did surprise him, though, was the lone figure, perched on top of the railing that separated the deck from the beach.

"Bella." Her name was out of his mouth before he could think about checking himself; the desire to see her and talk to her overrode all common sense about leaving her alone.

Startling, she barely managed to catch herself from toppling from her perched seat. "I didn't hear you," she mumbled, her voice barely audible above the ocean breeze. "So…that's your room?"

"It's the guest room, yes," he confirmed, hopping up on the railing next to her, "And it happens to be the closest room to the music room, so I usually use it whenever I'm here."

"That makes sense." She nodded, her eyes still focused on something that wasn't _him_.

He sighed, judging from the way she studiously avoided him, that she'd been hurt by his hasty departure. "Look…about this morning—"

"I get it," she interrupted him. "I get why you had to walk away. It was too much all at once."

He didn't bother to hide his surprise. "So you don't think I'm an asshole?"

Finally looking at him, her eyes were slightly mocking and completely guarded. "I didn't say that, did I?"

"So I'm an asshole but you understand why I behave the way I do?" he filled in for her, feeling as uneasy as he always did whenever he caught her understanding the kind of shit he really wanted to hide.

"I do." Shrugging, she let out a big breath before she went on. "I know why you ran away and I know why everyone around me, including you in an offhand way, keeps warning me about not getting into anything with you but, still…, I can't help myself."

"You want to get into something with _me_?" he asked, knowing he was entering very dangerous territory. Still, he wanted to know if she felt the same things he did. He _needed_ to know.

"Yes." The words sunk in like a brick; happiness and fear battled inside him as he picked up on her next words. "Even when I know it will probably end in heartbreak."

"I want to be the kind of man that would be proud to call himself yours," he admitted, matching her honesty with his as he went deeper with her than he ever had. "I don't know if I can, though."

"And I know I can't put up with it if you don't," she was quick to let him know, "but at the same time, I asked myself if all of those questions are still relevant or if I'm already in too deep."

Hopping off the fence, his hand stretched out to her as his heart hammered in his throat. The precipice they were on scared him as much as it made him want to jump. "Deep enough to put your trust in me?"

She didn't answer; her lip wedged in tightly between her lips as she placed her trembling little hand in his and allowed him to tug her down, her footsteps light against the wooden deck as she followed him into his room.

And straight into his heart.

"Bella…" he whispered, his hands closing around her slender shoulders as he touched his lips to hers. Once. Twice. Three times before they lingered.

And when they did, it was as good as it had been that morning; softness and fire dancing together and bringing both awareness and oblivion in a way he hadn't known before. At that moment, only the two of them existed.

In a tangled mess of tongues and hands, clothes were shed on their way to the bed. The awkwardness they felt at being physically naked only stood in the shadow of the greater step of baring their souls as he finally lay her down on his bed, her hair fanning out around her like a halo as he drank her in.

"You're perfect," he whispered, letting his fingers trace a trail from her from the base of her throat through the valley of her breasts and downwards until they met nothing but soft, yielding wetness. "I want you," he voiced, his words trailed off into a low groan as his fingers progressed upwards again, his lips kissing skin wherever they could reach.

"Then take me," she breathed, her hands dug into his hair as she pulled his lips towards hers. "Before I change my mind."

Kissing her, their bodies aligned, the heat of her already so warm and welcoming even as he did nothing but lay against her.

She was perfect.

She was everything.

Reaching into the bedside table, he found the stash of condoms he'd kept there since the last time he'd visited his sister's house, quickly slipping one on before aligning himself with her again. "Are you sure?"

She nodded, her strong little hands grabbing hold of him as her big, honest eyes burrowed right into his soul. "I want this, Edward."

It was all he needed to push forward; her heat enveloped him in a warm embrace as he slowly slid into her. "Jesus…_fuck_!" Closing his eyes, he steeled himself above her, trying to keep his mind in the game when all it wanted was to spiral out of control.

"It's okay," she spoke, her hands trembling as she brushed a few strands of hair out of his face. "I feel it, too…"

Crushing his lips to hers, their bodies started to find their pace, moving together, working together as they pulled and let go. Soft moans filled the air as he sped up, her hands caressing the crevice of his back, spurring him on as she neared her release.

And then they were falling; she first and he following soon after as the clamping of her walls around him and the look of her face pushed him over the edge.

In that moment, it was as if the past had never existed.

Even if it did, it didn't matter.

In that moment, he felt himself reborn.

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><p><em><strong>Thoughts?<strong>_


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

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><p><em><strong>LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.<strong>_

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><p><strong>13.<strong>

It took a few seconds for Bella to realize where she was when she woke up that morning; an unfamiliar light prickling against her eyes and a very alien heat settled against her back.

Then, as memories of the previous night started to flutter back into her mind, her mouth turned into a perfect 'o' shape while panic bubbled up inside her at an alarming rate.

What had she done?

In all her life, Bella had never been the one to make rash, spur of the moment decisions. After a hasty decision had claimed her mother's life, Bella had grown into one of the most cautious kids in her class, always weighing the dangers and benefits endlessly before she'd commit. Jumping into bed with a man she barely even knew was so out of character for her that, had she not felt his heat against her back, she would have had a hard time believing it was real.

And yet it had happened…not once but all throughout the night as their need for each other only seemed to grow every time they came together; his fingers played her like a precious guitar as she held him close with everything she had in her.

She couldn't explain it but there was something between them.

Something foreign…

Something intense…

Something dangerous…

Something she just couldn't let go of no matter how hard she tried to reason with herself.

Even in the cold light of day, she still blushed as she remembered how intense it had been between them. It was like nothing she had ever experienced in her life: raw, passionate, needy and insatiable. It was everything a girl could ever dream of feeling—with a man who couldn't be more wrong for her.

And that was just it.

This…_thing_ between them shouldn't have been happening. It was the wrong time, the wrong place and definitely the wrong person. When she chose to work for the Cullens, what she'd signed up for was a summer of watching kids, maybe relaxing a bit on the beach, and prepping for her first year at an Ivy League university. Not betraying the trust her employer had placed in her by boning a member of the family; a member she had been thoroughly warned to stay away from.

As panic started to well up inside her, she squirmed slowly and surely away from the stifling heat until she had moved away from Edward's hold. Apart from a sleepy groan and a shift as he his arms searched and found a pillow to hug in place of her body, she managed to worm away without waking him up.

_Good_. Sighing, she crept through the room, picking up her scattered clothing before trying to fix her mess of tangled hair into a braid. Then, she snuck out of the room through the terrace doors, too afraid of being caught doing the walk of shame to head into the house to grab her usual breakfast of coffee and whatever was left in the fridge.

Slipping through the French doors, she rushed away from the house. Only in _her_ dune did she relax as she realized she had managed to sneak away undetected; unseen by those who would judge her for where she had been that night and escaping the awkward 'morning after' that would undoubtedly have taken place if Edward had woken up before her.

And she needed to think anyway.

This thing she—_they_—had done was so out of character for her that she had a hard time figuring out what her plan should be. Did she want to pursue a relationship with him? Was that even an option? And what if she didn't? How would that affect her life under Carlisle and Esme's roof? Would they be able to keep things a secret whatever option they chose?

What would happen to her if they didn't?

Groaning, she threw herself backwards against the cool sand, wishing she had never met Edward Masen and his demonic charm, even though the tingling of desire in the pit of her stomach and the soreness of her muscles told her differently.

"There you are!" She barely had time to let out a shrill yep as Edward all but jumped into their spot, his hair in complete disarray and the similar state of his clothes revealing he'd left his room in quite a rush. "I was beginning to think I'd dreamed you up."

"I needed some time to think," she muttered, her eyes firmly on the sand between them.

"About what?" Completely disregarding her need for some space, he plopped down onto the sand next to her, the warmth radiating out from his body making her brain go all foggy when it needed to be sharp.

"About what?" she huffed, frustration leapfrogging over fear as she jumped up. "Did you forget what we did last night already?"

Grinning, he lay back against the sand, his hands behind his head. "Nope."

"So you don't think we need a plan or anything?" Bella fumed on. "Or at least a good old sit-down about where we see this going and what we're going to tell Carlisle and your sister?"

"Relax!" Judging from the annoyed sigh and the scrunched set of his nose, Edward hadn't given those things as much thought as Bella had. In fact, she was beginning to doubt if he'd thought about them at all!

"Relax?" she spat back. "Do you ever stop to think about the consequences of your actions? I mean…why did you invite me into your room last night? Do you like me at all or was I just convenient for an itch you needed to scratch?"

"I like you, okay?" Edward was quick to assure her, though Bella did notice his fences were all up again. The real Edward was gone and she didn't like that one bit. "You make me feel all kind of shit that's strange for me and, judging from last night, I'd say we really connect well together in more ways than one." He let out a frustrated sigh. "But I'm not the 'planning ahead' kind of guy so if you want to discuss China patterns and names for our future children, you're barking up the wrong fucking tree."

"I'm sorry, but I can't afford the luxury of flying by the seat of my pants." Pressing her lips together, Bella tried to keep as much of her inner turmoil out of her voice as she could. "I actually have a lot riding on this summer, and I'm not just talking about the fact that I'm going to have to find a bridge to sleep under if your sister kicks me out of the house for inappropriate behavior." Shaking her head, she finally looked at him, ill at ease with what she saw. Or more accurately: what she _didn't_ see. "I intend to go into law, Edward, and I was hoping that if I make a good impression on Carlisle this summer, he might try to help me set up an internship at his firm or another. I don't have the luxury of a lot of money in the bank to fall back on. I _need_ this opportunity."

For the first time, she saw a little crack in the concrete wall he had hidden behind as his eyes searched and found hers again. "I wish I could offer you more stability, Bella, but…that's not what my life is about at this point." Pressing his lips into a hard line, he let out a deep breath. "I _do_ like you, though, and I think that if you give me some time…" His voice trailed off. "I _want_ to be whatever you need me to be. I want to be with you but right now…I can't promise you anything, but I wish I could."

She nodded, biting her lip. Most of what he was saying had been exactly what she was afraid of. As foreign as the life of an international rock star may have been to her, she did know that it didn't exactly offer a lot of stability or allow for many promises made to those around him. She knew that…but she also understood that even the thought of what his life entailed made her extremely nervous.

"_Please_." She was almost shocked to hear his voice again, piercing through the clouds of thought drifting around her mind. "I want to keep seeing you. It will be our little secret for as long as you need it to be. Just…give me a little bit more of your patience?"

She nodded, tasting her own blood as her teeth pierced the skin of her bottom lip. Deep down she was wondering how big of a mistake she was making but, at the same time, she knew she couldn't have come to a different decision. As rational as her objections to the man were, the irrational need for him overrode all those arguments.

And as he kissed her with the sheer desperation of a man who had almost lost the thing most dear to him, rationality flew right out of the window.

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><p><em><strong>Thoughts? <strong>_


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